[jcavhs]

I'm going to start with the fact that I have pretty much no knowledge of plumbing or really home repair so there may be a very simple answer that I just don't know. But I'm going to give a lot of detail, much of which may be extraneous but I don't want to leave anything out.

I live in a condo. There are four units on two floors of the building. We have a shared water system but individual water heaters. I moved into my unit on the second floor in October 2008 and have had no problems until now.

I re-did my kitchen recently - new cabinets and counter tops along with a new sink and garbage disposal. When my dad tried to hook up the dishwasher again there was a leak in the turn off valve. The leak is from the compression adapter that we used to connect the new flexible line to the valve. Got a new adapter and put that on and it still leaked.

Bought a new valve, turned off the water supply for the building waited for the water in the pipes to run out. The sinks ran out fairly quickly but the supply for the dishwasher took 5-10 minutes. Put the new valve on and it leaked pretty much everywhere. Turned the water back off and removed the new valve intending to try again. Half an hour later the water was still coming out of that supply line (no idea why). Turned the output valve from the water heater off after about 10 minutes just to be on the safe side since the water coming out was warm but then it just went back to cold.

Just put the old valve back on with water still coming out just not have water spilling inside the cabinet. As long as I leave the valve turned off there is no leak. We turned the water for the building back on and the water heater out valve back on. This was all yesterday.

Since then there seems to be no issues with cold water. I can have all three faucets in the unit (2 bathrooms and kitchen) at full blast and it is fine. But the hot water is being odd. Sometimes it is just fine but other times the amount of water coming out is very low. For example, I turned on the hot water in the kitchen and got about 1/3-1/2 the amount of water I would expect or that I was getting with cold water. I let the water run for a couple of minutes and it stayed the same. Turned it off, came back 10-15 minutes later and the flow was normal. Water pressure also seems to be an issue since I can get a full flow from a shower head but the pressure is very weak.

I've checked the heater (it is a gas water heater, no idea how old) and the out valve is in the open position. Didn't touch anything else yesterday.

Any help would be appreciated.

[ballengerb1]

Was that flexible supply line vinyl tubing, if so it needed a brass insert inside the tube before a compression nut can be used. At this point I think you have a fairly large chunk of debris in the inlet for the hot water on that faucet. One handle or two?

[creahands]

If the valve is a threaded valve, did u wrap tread with Teflon tape to seal threads? If not should be wrapped 3 to 4 times.
Wrap clock wise on pipe or clock wise on valve with thread facing u.

If dripping from handle, tighten nut that is behind handle.

One of the plumbing experts can help with other problem.

Good luck

Chuck

[jcavhs]

The leak is not from the flexible tubing connection - that is just fine. The leak with the valve is from the side of the compression nut that faces the valve. I'm attaching a picture, the red arrow shows where the leak is.

As for the kitchen sink it is a one handle faucet. But the issue occurs with ALL the sinks in the unit - the kitchen and both the bathrooms. And the low flow is in both showers.

[creahands]

The compression nut may not be tight enough. Try to get a 1/4 turn on it. Be sure to use 2 wrenches as u may twist the pipe and break solder joint.

Chuck