Hot Water and Pressure

Yes we are still alive. I thought that rather than trying to catch every one up, I'll just pick up with another post again.

Yesterday I decided to tackle the low pressure problem we were having with the hot water in the shower. I figured it was a problem with the washer in the hot stem and sure enough, the head of the washer had twisted right off and was lodged in the stem. I didn't notice this at the time though and re-assembled everything and tried it again and now there was no hot water flow at all. Oh no!

I went downstairs and checked out the water heater and noticed something irritating. Even though we have 1/2" galvanized piping in our house (and some copper too) the supply lines to and from the water heater were 3/8" copper lines, the kind used for a kitchen or bathroom sink. Well I couldn't let that stand so I replaced them after many trips to Home Depot, Lowe's, and True Value (well I couldn't be seen in the same store that many times in the same day).

Here are my trips to the store.
1) Washers for the tub stems.
2) Flexible water-heater supply lines 3/4 inch diameter.
3) Galvanized pipe fittings (reducers, nipples, elbows, etc...)
4) The right galvanized pipe fittings this time.
5) Bigger pipe wrench
6) Shorter 3/4" nipples

Well I got that all done and noticed the water pressure still sucked on the hot side. So I finally got smart and looked in the tub stem with a flashlight and noticed the blockage from the remains of the old washer. A pair of tweezers took care of that. Ah, well... it needed to be done and helped the hot pressure immensely.

Finally finished up about 6:00 pm so it was about 7 hours altogether, but only about 2 hours of actual work.