I cannot bypass the meter, but there is good flow to the water softener, so I do not believe the meter is blocked as it is before the softener.

Don't confuse pressure with water flow. If you have a flow restriction you will have pressure on the line until you open a faucet, that pressure will disappear immediately because the opening in the faucet is larger than the opening in the restriction, the flow will still be restricted. You have a flow problem not a pressure problem.

Sorry we are both posting at the same time. If you have good flow out of the softner then the restriction will be beyond the softner. There must be another valve beyond the softner somewhere. You opened the pipes when you removed the softner. Any signs of mineral deposits? You said good flow to the softner, how about flow out of the softner?

My dad is the one who actually disconnected the lines, but he did not mention any kind of mineral deposits. But then again, the lines he disconnected are less than 4 years old. We installed the water softener when we first moved in. Maybe I should have mentioned that the plumbing from the very first shutoff (including the shutoff valve) to approximately 4 feet after the softener is pretty much all less than 4 years old, aside from about 2-3 feet that we reused when installing the softener. Sorry.

My dad came over again yesterday and we decided to see if the water meter had anything to do with the problem. He took off the meter and temporarily reconnected the water lines with a hose. We tested the water pressure. It now appears that the water meter is the culprit. We had our water pressure back. The water company is coming out today to test the meter themselves to make sure. Once again I'll keep you posted, and, again thanks for all your input. I'm definitely glad my wife found this website. :)

Glad you got it solved. Thanks for keeping us posted.