Hello,
Before I get to the kitchen faucet there is a bit of a back story that might be useful to know.
I recently bought a condo on the top (6th floor). During the first year we identified and corrected a crossover. The main cold water pipe from the building was connected directly to their hot water re circulation system. Plumbers cut and rerouted to correct the issue. I now have cold and hot separated. The cold water pipe runs up and stops in my unit, the hot water recirculates back down. The pipes they fixed were large blue pvc and are just before my unit's main valves, so it was a building issue.
As you know when you cut pvc pipe, little blue particles make their way into the faucet filters, so that was an easy fix for me & I do check once a month. Ever since they corrected the cross over my kitchen sink pressure has visibly dropped, the 6 second test shows an output of 350ml or 3500ml per minute or simply 0.92 GPM. My bathroom faucet by comparison outputs 1.18 GPM and it flows nicely. My kitchen faucet is a single turn control, with a pull down hose. It has a weight attached to the metal flex tubing under the sink, it also has a water hammer arrester installed on cold & hot lines. The valves are completely open.
I removed the faucet aerator and found no flow restriction attached. When I looked into the faucet tube I find a small hole measuring 1/4". This appears to be a metal flow restrictor of somekind which is in there by design & cannot be removed without probably having to replace the hose. When I run the water test with the aerator removed there is no visible change.
There is also a slight 'crink' or bend in the flexible metal tubing under the sink, just below the black weight for the faucet handle. Even when I squeeze the tube (to try & correct the crink) the pressure doesn't visibly change from the faucet, although i'm not entirely ruling that out yet.
Do I need to start looking at the cartridge in the faucet control? I'm wondering if a large peice of PVC made it's way in there. Perhaps a 1/4" hole with my pressure is supposed to generate 0.92 gpm but i have no way of knowing if thats true or not.
Before I get to the kitchen faucet there is a bit of a back story that might be useful to know.
I recently bought a condo on the top (6th floor). During the first year we identified and corrected a crossover. The main cold water pipe from the building was connected directly to their hot water re circulation system. Plumbers cut and rerouted to correct the issue. I now have cold and hot separated. The cold water pipe runs up and stops in my unit, the hot water recirculates back down. The pipes they fixed were large blue pvc and are just before my unit's main valves, so it was a building issue.
As you know when you cut pvc pipe, little blue particles make their way into the faucet filters, so that was an easy fix for me & I do check once a month. Ever since they corrected the cross over my kitchen sink pressure has visibly dropped, the 6 second test shows an output of 350ml or 3500ml per minute or simply 0.92 GPM. My bathroom faucet by comparison outputs 1.18 GPM and it flows nicely. My kitchen faucet is a single turn control, with a pull down hose. It has a weight attached to the metal flex tubing under the sink, it also has a water hammer arrester installed on cold & hot lines. The valves are completely open.
I removed the faucet aerator and found no flow restriction attached. When I looked into the faucet tube I find a small hole measuring 1/4". This appears to be a metal flow restrictor of somekind which is in there by design & cannot be removed without probably having to replace the hose. When I run the water test with the aerator removed there is no visible change.
There is also a slight 'crink' or bend in the flexible metal tubing under the sink, just below the black weight for the faucet handle. Even when I squeeze the tube (to try & correct the crink) the pressure doesn't visibly change from the faucet, although i'm not entirely ruling that out yet.
Do I need to start looking at the cartridge in the faucet control? I'm wondering if a large peice of PVC made it's way in there. Perhaps a 1/4" hole with my pressure is supposed to generate 0.92 gpm but i have no way of knowing if thats true or not.
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