Low Water Pressure? Try A Copper Repiping Upgrade
I went on vacation last June to a small cottage in Wisconsin. One thing I knew going into the vacation was that we were going to be roughing it a little bit. The place we stayed was about 60 years old and was fairly inexpensive for a week’s cost. What I didn’t realize was just how “rough” it was going to get over the course of our stay.
I’m all for bathing in the river or lake when I’m doing hard core camping, but when I pay for a cabin with running water and flushing toilets, my hope is that I’m going to get to use those facilities. On our previously mentioned trip when it came time to take a shower we were in for a little surprise. Basically what happened was that there was no water coming out of the shower head.
When I say “no water” I literally mean no water. I thought the main water valve of the house had been inadvertently shut off…but no luck. In fact I then decided to remove the shower head to see if a clog of some sort was blocking its use. Well it turns out that the plumbing in the cabin was made of galvanized steel piping. What this home badly needed was a copper repiping upgrade. You see in homes older than about 40 years or so galvanized steel has a tendancey to corrode and fill up with calcium deposits. Because of this, the pipe flow rate drastically shrinks over time…and eventually even closes shut.
I notifited the home owner of the cabin we stayed at and he had a plumber come over and put in a quick fix. Basically he got the copper piping of the shower head cleared out enough without having to do a complete repipe job. We were lucky. In the end, its not something that I would have thought about myself unless I experienced it…but now I know what to look for in my own home.