Low Water Pressure? Work Through It in This Order
Pressure dropping through the house is rarely a mystery — it’s a short list of suspects. Check them in this order before you replace anything.
By Danny Lachhman · Owner, 360WATER Systems Inc. · Orangeville, Ontario
When the whole house loses pressure, people tend to blame whichever piece of equipment they can see — usually the softener. Sometimes it is the softener. More often it’s something simpler, and the order you check things in saves you money.
First: is it one tap or the whole house? One tap means that fixture — a clogged aerator screen is the usual culprit, and unscrewing and rinsing it is a two-minute free fix. Whole house means you work the list below.
Second: put the softener and filters on bypass. Every treatment system has a bypass valve. Switch to bypass and run a tap. If pressure comes right back, the problem is inside the treatment equipment — a plugged filter cartridge, a fouled softener bed, or a valve issue — and you’ve found it without a single tool. If nothing changes on bypass, the treatment equipment is innocent; leave it alone.
Third (well water): watch the pressure gauge and the pump. A well system lives between two pressures — cut-in and cut-out, often 40/60 psi. If pressure fades before the pump kicks in, or the pump cycles on and off rapidly (“short cycling”), the pressure tank is the prime suspect: its internal bladder fails with age and the tank waterlogs. That’s a tank problem, not a pump problem, and confusing the two is expensive.
Fourth: how old are the filter cartridges? Sediment and carbon cartridges are wear parts. A cartridge months past its life chokes flow a little more every week, so the pressure loss feels gradual — because it is. If you can’t remember when they were last changed, that’s your answer.
Fifth: the honest one — did it change suddenly, or creep? Sudden changes mean something happened: work on the street, a partially closed main valve, debris after a municipal repair. Creeping changes mean something is loading up or wearing out.
Work the list in order and you’ll either fix it free or be able to tell us exactly what changed and when — which makes any service call shorter and cheaper.
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