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Kitchen faucet losing pressure

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Kent Whitten

· The Duke
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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I humbly ask my plumbing brethren for some advice. I have a Delta kitchen faucet. I tried looking for a pic of it but I can't find it. My wife bought it (sigh) at HD. It's antique looking brass (?) one handle mounted on the faucet. Where the water comes out, there's a switch for spray and stream. The faucet handle is the sprayer. $300 or so from my recollection.

So, when I turn the water on, there's pressure like there's supposed to be. Gradually, it loses pressure. Not a complete loss, but significant. Turn it off and right back on, still low pressure. Turn it off and wait 10 seconds, then turn it on, plenty of pressure then slow pressure drop.

It's like there's a kink in a hose that's restricting the flow if you know what I mean. I know we've had a slow drip on the hot side and I need to replace the washers. This doesn't have anything to do with it does it? I know just enough about plumbing to be dangerous.

I was hoping to go for the sympathy votes since I stack my nails on my double top plates over the studs so you guys don't drive your drill bits into hidden nails.
 
#2 ·
I'm no plumber, but sometimes I pretend to be. Have you tried pulling it apart to look for any blockages? Is there a screen on the output end that might be clogged?

Usually, if you mess with something like this long enough, it gets fixed. Or replaced, which is the same thing as far as she's concerned!
 
#3 ·
Most pull out sprayer type faucets have a check valve built into the sprayer portion, usually right where the hose attaches, more than likely this check valve is full of crud that is accounting for your pressure loss. It takes a few seconds for the crud to build up in the check screen each time.
 
#4 ·
Framerman, I've run into this with several brands of faucets, but only the type with a removable spout. The kind attached to a hose. Many brands have a small screen filter right where the hose connects to the spout and it gets clogged easily. I think Kohler has one in a ss mesh hose but the screen is factory installed and needs to be carefully pried out. When cleaned it goes back in, no more drop in pressure.
 
#5 ·
Is it the same story with the Hot and Cold?

if it's different maybe you have a leak way back in the pipes, (water bills get higher) check for mosture around the walls, sounds like you checked all the easy stuff...

Did you have the right braided lines or angle stops? too narrow and you will lose pressure after the inital 5 seconds or so.
 
#6 ·
There are many things that come to mind, aerator, check stems, diverter, take the supplies off where they connect to the faucet, use a 5 gallon bucket to check the flow, also look into the bucket for rust balls if that is not itlook up the suplies up to the faucets sometimes they put the checks right there, see if you can get them out to clean them. the diverter is in the swing section of the spout, remove all the inner parts to pull the spout off, pry the diverter out and flow some water through it, check the aerator.
 
#7 ·
How old is the house and what kind of pipe is run, galvanized, plastic, copper, etc.? Sounds like you have pipes closing up down the line, not a faucet problem. If the water flows good for more then 6 seconds or so the faucet is not the trouble. Could even be a valve that is not all the way open somewhere.
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
I took the hose off the sprayer part and found a chunk of something in there. Not sure how much it would restrict the flow. It seems better ATM. The house is quite old, but the plumbing is modern (copper)

We are on a well and I don't think there has been any type of sediment trap installed. My dad did all of the plumbing along with all of the electrical and heating. To say the least I have some issues here and there.

The pressure only dropped last night on the kitchen faucet, no other faucet was affected. Same story hot and cold.

I'll come back if I have anything else happen to it. For now, it seems fine. I'm gonna attempt to replace the washers this weekend to stop the dripping. I'll see how many small parts I can accidentally drop down the drain.
 
Discussion starter · #9 ·
OK, so something is happening I did not see before. If I turn it on full cold, I get full pressure. If I turn it on full hot, it has full pressure, then starts losing gradually.

The timing of when it starts to lose pressure is when the hot water starts getting to the faucet. The hotter it gets, the less pressure I have. So, I turned it off, waited 10 seconds or so and turned it back on. Instant pressure, then almost an instant drop once the hot water got there. If I turn it off for like 60 seconds, I get pressure for a longer time until the hot water reaches the tap, then instant drop in pressure.

I have one of those crappy Bosch instant propane heaters if that's what everyone is going to ask. I went to the bath faucets to check for similar occurrences and did not get the same results as my kitchen faucets. I don't know if the HWH has anything to do with it or not but I'm sure you'll tell me to ditch the HD Bosch heater.
 
#10 ·
Could be that your kitchen faucet flows more than the Bosch heater flows. You have "capacity" in all the connected pipes to the kitchen faucet. Once you use that up, the pressure drops in accordance with how much the water heater flows. Just a guess.
 
#11 ·
Somewhat in line with MD's reasoning, you have shutoffs under the sink with flex lines going to the faucet ass'y? Disconnect the hot water flex line and run it into a bucket, and see if you get the same behavior. That would at least prove for sure whether the faucet is actually the problem.
 
#15 ·
framerman said:
The timing of when it starts to lose pressure is when the hot water starts getting to the faucet. The hotter it gets, the less pressure I have. So, I turned it off, waited 10 seconds or so and turned it back on. Instant pressure, then almost an instant drop once the hot water got there. If I turn it off for like 60 seconds, I get pressure for a longer time until the hot water reaches the tap, then instant drop in pressure.

I have one of those crappy Bosch instant propane heaters if that's what everyone is going to ask. I went to the bath faucets to check for similar occurrences and did not get the same results as my kitchen faucets. I don't know if the HWH has anything to do with it or not but I'm sure you'll tell me to ditch the HD Bosch heater.
Click to expand...
If the aerator flow is greater than the output of the heater you will get a drop in volume.

If this was an older style faucet that used bibb washers I would say that the hot water is swelling the bibb washers causing them to restrict the flow of water, but this could also the problem if you are using braided stainless steel supplies.
 
#16 ·
To add to this, if the house has galvanized water pipes and you ever have to drain the water lines in the walls, make sure you run the water for a minute and flush all the brown out of the lines before hooking it up to any fixtures or appliances.

I had this problem recently, after re-installing a faucet I turned on the cold and out came brown dirty water. It ran at normal pressure for about 10 seconds then slowed down to about half or one third pressure. So I pulled out my phone and fortunately I found this thread and realized the problem. The dirty water had clogged up the screen in the faucet. All I had to do was take the head off the sprayer, use a screw to pull up the screen and put it back in.
 
#17 ·
Thread is 2 years old. I'm sure he beat this faucet until it was bent and flattened with his largest hammer.

Then bought a new faucet.
 
Discussion starter · #19 · (Edited)
Leo G said:
Thread is 2 years old. I'm sure he beat this faucet until it was bent and flattened with his largest hammer.

Then bought a new faucet.
Click to expand...
Actually, it was the flexible hose for the faucet head that was the major culprit. I think one of the kids pulled the head out partially and just cranked down on it.

KentWhitten said:
I took the hose off the sprayer part and found a chunk of something in there. Not sure how much it would restrict the flow. It seems better ATM. The house is quite old, but the plumbing is modern (copper)
Click to expand...
I'm glad to see Kenn got it fixed because of this thread. :clap:
 
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