Hi. We have a house in Patonga on the NSW Central Coast. The problem is really low water pressure. It has always been bad but after some recent council adjustments its now dire. There is scarcely enough pressure to run a washing machine and showers are now just an uncomfortable trickle.

The way the house is plumbed up is that there are basically three pipes coming off one long 15mm mains pipe running under the slab. The first one is a front garden tap, on 15mm copper tube. The second take-off supplies all of the house, and is 12mm copper tube. This 12mm tube is soldered to the 15mm mains immediately it comes out of the slab. This supplies the hot water system, downstairs bathroom/laundry, upstairs bathroom and kitchen. The third take-off is a rear garden tap on 12mm copper tube.

I measured how long it takes to fill a standard bucket to 2/3 full and this is what I found:

-> The front garden tap takes 5 seconds to 2/3 fill the bucket.

-> The time taken to 2/3 fill the bucket inside the house varies from 30 secs to 70 secs. I could sum it up by saying it takes 30 secs on the ground floor and 45 secs on the first floor through a standard tap. Where a mixer or shower head is involved it takes about 50% longer.

-> The rear garden tap takes 20 seconds to 2/3 fill the bucket.

Aside from the reduction from 15mm to 12mm inside the house, I cant spot any other restrictions. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious problem with the plumbing (kinked pipes etc) and judging by the neatness I would say it was all professionally done.

I want to know more about this before calling a plumber. Does this sound like a normal setup here or is there some obvious error with the way the house is plumbed up? Is it normal to feed an entire (small) house on one 12mm pipe? Is it normal to have that amount of pressure drop off between the ground and first floor? Any suggestions on how I might find out what is going on before calling a plumber ?

thanks for the help
Arron


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