My water softener never really worked when I bought the house 11 years ago so I have had it bypassed all this time. Recently the pvc bypass valve produced a hair crack in it which caused a small leak. 4 days ago it became larger and became uncontrollable. I turned the water off and tried to patch it but that didn't work so I pulled the whole thing out and when I did the incoming and outgoing copper that was going into the softener was of the companies own design. I couldn't get the right fitting to go around it, so as a quick fix I used a heavy duty water hose as a u valve to connect the 2 so I can get water running through the home. It worked but I noticed when I turned it on in the morning I heard a strange noise in my pipes and now I hardly have any water pressure on the hot water side.. what could have caused the noise? I thought it could be air in the lines so I opened all the faucets and let them run for awhile but its still didn't fix the problem. The water get s hot but it doesn't come out with the same amount of pressure than before I took off the water softener.

In cutting and reconfiguring the pipes, you could have released debris and that has clogged the aerators and/or ports on the valve stem. Single handle faucets are most commonly affected. Clean all the aerators and if you have single handle faucets, turn off the water, remove the stems and clean the posts.