Plumbing issue suggestions?

Off Topic
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The short version:
I suspect we have debris in our line causing a sudden drop in water pressure to the guest bathroom sink and toilet (shower is ok though) after work in the yard at the cutoff, then water coming back on and nasty stuff initially coming out of sink.

Any suggestions? (And we as VERY ignorant on much of this, but I’m armed with google and YouTube…)

–tl:dr warning line-- :slight_smile:

The bigger backstory story:

2 weeks ago the city (lewisville) fixed a leak in the yard on the city side and had dug up our cutoff stuff plus on area between sidewalk and street.

Today I’m leaving house and see water gushing from cutoff area and running down street. Call city (I’m away from house). They say will run by, then call me and say its leak on residence side but turned off water as courtesy. Ummm…no. You just did repair in that exact area less than two weeks ago and had that whole thing dug out. To condense eventual supervisor call, they agreed to come fix anyway. Um, thx? Ok. So they fix that. Come tell me water is turned back on and they leave.

I go turn on kitchen faucet. Yup. On.
Well, early evening, an hour or so later, I turn on guest bathroom faucet. Very nasty muddy water comes out, and it stinks of chemical too (that glue they use?) so I run to clear it.

Hm. The bathroom sink now has 1/3 of pressure it should have.

The toilet right beside it, almost no pressure either.

Shower right beside that is fine though.

All other faucets in house are fine.

The issue is that even though there’s a clear causal effect related to their work, I bet it would take an act of congress to get them to do more since they barely did last repair only to keep me from going ballistic (I might have sounded a tad bit tense on the phone because I could tell they were trying to deny responsibility to residence side issue even though their work damaged it). So I think it will be uphill to get them to address the issues in the house their work caused. And I get it that crap gets in line after work sometimes, but it shouldn’t be costing me a potential plumber trip for their repair…

WE TRIED:

Googling, we try that thing where you run all the faucets and flush toilets simultaneously (air in line?). No joy.

I tried just letting the faucet run a very long time so maybe if debris it would wear it down. I don’t know if that stupid but thought it wouldn’t hurt. It might be imagination of teensy better, but this isn’t the answer I think.

Google says the aerator could be clogged, which I’ll try if I can find a wrench. But the toilet too?? Given both low pressure and close proximity makes me think its junk in the line feeding them.

****any other brilliant ideas that we could try? And again, we are plumbing stupid, but we could try…

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For the faucet, you can try removing the aerator and cleaning it.

For the toilet, that’s not so easy, but might involve the same basic process of clearing the fill valve.

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Yeah I’ll try the faucet aerator later today when I find a wrench and I’m back on speaking terms with that stupid bathroom.

The similar things for toilet is…daunting…

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Ok and followup question…

This couldn’t be much suckier timing with holidays (our stuff/people starts this wednesday, and goes through next Wednesday in various combos)…at least no house guests.

Buuuut…will it hurt anything if this sits until next week before I tackle things that will involve wrenches and videos?

Please say yes.

And for that matter, any chance this stuff will automagically clear? It works, just annoying and low pressure. We could live with it a week or two and see (pray) it goes away.

Or is this one of those things like car crap that seem innocent but ignoring it adds dollars signs and complexity to fixing it?

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In my opinion, no. Let it sit over the holiday with clear conscience. It won’t really matter.
The fill valve thing IS a bit daunting if you don’t do it with any frequency, but isn’t really that big of a deal, depending on the quality/function of your shut off and fill valve. If they’re old and/or rickety, it gets a lot more daunting. But if you’re facing calling a plumber anyway, having them replace a shut off and fill valve isn’t really much more expensive than having them flush one out.
And maybe after the holidays, you’ll feel like battling the city into sending their goons or paying the bill. A homeowner shouldn’t really have to do this kind of thing because they had do to repair, in my estimation. On the other hand, you might not want a pissed off city plumber in your home…

PS the aerator on the faucet doesn’t usually require much in the way of “wrench”. Hand tight will usually do it, or a rag (to prevent marring the surface; you work with jewelry, you know this) with a slipjoint plier (channel locks to most folks).

PPS not like car crap, in general, in my experience. The debris will generally just sit there being annoying. If it’s dirt, it might clear up on its own with use. If it’s gravel, plastic or other big stuff, though, probably not. I wouldn’t count on it, but maybe you’ll get a (pleasant) Christmas surprise!

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And I guess the obvious question…does it sound like my google-fu diagnosis of issue is about right (debris in line), given immediately affecting two items right after water turned back on after yard work and obviously something nasty was in pipes?

Ha. Yeah. And in this house, ever single EVERY time we touch a pipe, valve, connection, knob, its seized up and has to be actually replaced. Every. Time.

Grr. On the other hand, if my brother doesn’t have time at Christmas while he’s in town, we have to get plumber to fix broken off water cutoff behind fridge. Got freezer issue (fan) fixed recently and while at it, new icemaker (I fired the old one a couple years ago because i got sick of fixing it, being annoyed, and used trays. Life’s too short.). Well, the stinker still doesn’t work because of stupid line leading to it (I think) and appliance guy won’t fix without cutoff valve (fair/liability). Buuuuut, of course, its --broken-- off back there. Stupid last homeowners. We KEEP finding weirdnesses and crappy bubblegum and balin’ wire fixes.

Sigh. I think this might be making me cranky. I’m gonna come play at DMS later today and relax before the holidays :slight_smile:

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To be fair to others, I’ve yet to work on one of these that I didn’t replace that actually cut anything off. The good old quarter-turn ball valve style is the only one to get. Everywhere. They usually work. The washer & seat variety used most often simply don’t work when needed (in my experience; your mileage may vary).
Have fun@DMS & unwind. It’s why we’re here!

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For the toilet, you can try raising and lowing the float on the fill valve rapidly (NOT forcefully; we do not want to break it). Do this with the water on and the tank empty. This will cause water hamming in the line and may jar loose whatever is stopping it up.

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What I would do is disconnect at the faucet. Put one in, into a bucket. Open the valve and check flow. It may be in the valve assembly either at the shut off or in the faucet. By disconnecting it will eliminate one of the issues.

Back in the day bread was used to put inside the line while it was soldered. I can’t say for sure anymore if that is SOP.

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Dear lord. Those intensely stupid multi-turn cutoff valves must come from the factory designed to leak in anything other than the full-open and full-shut position - and even then they’re iffy. They’re the “ten-turn pot(entiometer)” of plumbing (the set-and-forget kind soldered onto boards rated for 10 lifetime rotations, not the pricey reduction-gear variety).

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There is probably sediment blocking the ball cock in the toilet tank. It will most likely to replace the assembly (ball cock/flush valve) they are available at Lowes etc and easy to install.

You are in Lewisville - I can replace it for you if you like. Lowe’s has them for about $10 or $15? I just replaced one not long ago. Freezer water supply line valve is easy too if the line is not buried in the wall. (I know nothing about ice makers tho)

when I bought a older house - I replaced all the water supply valves with 1/4 turn ball valves. and changed all the light switches and outlets too.
Contractor “quality” (oxymoron) is the cheapest out there.

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Thx, yeah I’ll try suggestion of messing with float valve, and/or replace that stuff in the tank. We’ve actually done that before.

That freezer supply line valve. I may take you up on that after the holidays. Thx bunches! Once its replaced the appliance guy will come finish the other fix. He was super nice, we just hit an impasse for him to proceed until that stupid valve repaired. Its copper. He said it was likely seized and why the knob busted off. Needs cutting out and replacing likely. Its in kind of a pocket inset there in the wall behind the fridge.

Ugh. These houses. Few years ago we thought we’d do a “simple” home improvement band upgrade bathroom faucets. Yeah. All that stuff under there was corroded and fragile. Sigh. Was a headache.

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Can you pm me a pic of the offending valve behind the fridge?

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Sending (and fairly pleased I managed to wrangle fridge out and back all by myself) :stuck_out_tongue:

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An old plumber taught me that trick way way back in the 1980s - a great justification for plain old white bread…

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Yup.
Still done today.
Only you CAN go more hightech if you want…
https://www.amazon.com/Plumbers-Bread-Temporary-Barrier-Repairs/dp/B008KPKRJ6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
and another option
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Dry-Sweat-Pipe-Plug-Kit/dp/B002CTUX2C/ref=pd_sbs_60_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B002CTUX2C&pd_rd_r=TVWRQN7N3WMJX4S6B4VG&pd_rd_w=mJkLZ&pd_rd_wg=ZzxHx&psc=1&refRID=TVWRQN7N3WMJX4S6B4VG

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Unrelated to the OP, but was part of the “also viewed” part on Amazon when I turned up those links above. Made me guffaw out loud, so I had to share:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074S9YJ24/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B074S9YJ24&pd_rd_wg=ynjgB&pd_rd_r=Q3BH8H8BW9X7Z52Y03J4&pd_rd_w=aDoTg
as in (one presumes) “put the kibosh on that plumbing problem!”.
BWAHHAHA! :smile:

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