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Pipes Posted by Bill Homer [Email] (#3427) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Bill Homer) on Tue, 2 Oct 2007 13:20:19 In Reply to: Home Water Heater >>> low water pressure, STICKMAN, Tue, 2 Oct 2007 09:05:19 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
I had a similar issue with my first house: hot water flow was notably slower than cold water flow (quite pathetic). At that point, the house was about 35 years old (the youngest house that I have lived in!) and had galvanized iron pipes.
To improve the flow, I replaced the hot water pipes as far as was practical, i.e. all the larger diameter pipes starting at the hot water heater, out to those smaller pipes that did not require cutting into walls - the house was a split-level, so most of the plumbing was centralized and easy to get to. Upon removal, I found that the smaller diameter pipes were almost completely clogged with calcium and rust; you absolutely could not see light through them. Evidently, hot water pipes clog up much faster than cold - and this is with relatively soft Lake Michigan water.
I had never done a plumbing project before, so I went with galvanized pipe for replacement - if you get the right size, it's a simple replacement with a large enough set of pipe wrenches. Note that most hardware stores will cut and thread iron pipes to the correct length that you need. Several houses and plumbing projects later, I would now use copper, which is much less susceptible to this problem.
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