We've been having some water pressure issues in our house since last summer. It started with our toilet not flushing; We have a highly efficient dual flush toilet to conserve our water usage, more on that later. Slowly our water pressure started dropping off while doing dishes, or taking a shower. It has gotten so bad that it was taking so long to fill the dogs water bucket that I knew something had to be bad.
Being one to try and save out landlord (Mowana) some money I decided to try and tinker with the plumbing (since I installed some of it) and see where our water pressure was dropping off. No matter which shutoffs I tried it didn't make any difference in how high or low our water pressure was. The only thing that I noticed is that given a long enough period of time the water pressure would build up and when we turned on the water at a faucet, we'd have good pressure for about ten seconds until the water went down to a trickle.
We called the water softener/well guys and they came out to have a look. Guess what... the pipes leading in from the pressure tank to the first filter in the water softner system were clogged with iron. I don't mean just a lot of buildup in the pipe, I mean enough iron in the pipe so that when you look at it (3/4 inch pipe mind you) there is literally a toothpick sized hole for water to be passing through.
It took a couple of hours for our well guy to cut up our pipes, clean out the ones that couldn't be removed and replace the ones that he cut.
Needless to say, that night when I was taking my shower after cleaning the barn and working with the goats we had great water pressure and plenty of hot water. Casey apparently heard me start the shower and thought that a water pipe had burst in the bathroom. Later she said that she thought that it sounded like a monsoon in our bathroom. I don't think the water pressure in the house has ever been so good.
Being one to try and save out landlord (Mowana) some money I decided to try and tinker with the plumbing (since I installed some of it) and see where our water pressure was dropping off. No matter which shutoffs I tried it didn't make any difference in how high or low our water pressure was. The only thing that I noticed is that given a long enough period of time the water pressure would build up and when we turned on the water at a faucet, we'd have good pressure for about ten seconds until the water went down to a trickle.
We called the water softener/well guys and they came out to have a look. Guess what... the pipes leading in from the pressure tank to the first filter in the water softner system were clogged with iron. I don't mean just a lot of buildup in the pipe, I mean enough iron in the pipe so that when you look at it (3/4 inch pipe mind you) there is literally a toothpick sized hole for water to be passing through.
It took a couple of hours for our well guy to cut up our pipes, clean out the ones that couldn't be removed and replace the ones that he cut.
Needless to say, that night when I was taking my shower after cleaning the barn and working with the goats we had great water pressure and plenty of hot water. Casey apparently heard me start the shower and thought that a water pipe had burst in the bathroom. Later she said that she thought that it sounded like a monsoon in our bathroom. I don't think the water pressure in the house has ever been so good. 
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