Sudden low water pressure in the whole apartment — where do I start?
Woke up and the water pressure is weak everywhere — kitchen, both bathrooms, shower barely works. It happened overnight, no warning. Neighbours seem fine. Where do I even start before calling a plumber?
3 answers
Because it's every outlet at once and it happened suddenly, work from the main inward:
- Check your apartment's main shut-off valve (usually near the water heater or in the utility riser). If someone nudged it half-closed, that alone drops pressure everywhere. Open it fully.
- Hot only, or cold too? If only hot is weak, the problem is your water heater / its inlet valve, not the building supply.
- Building-side: if the main valve is open and both hot and cold are weak, ask the watchman/FM whether the building pump or tank is being serviced. Overnight tank cleaning is a common cause.
- Aerators: if it turns out to be just one or two taps, it's clogged aerators — unscrew and rinse.
Start with the main valve — it's the most common and it's free to check.
It was the building — pump maintenance overnight that no one announced. Back to normal by evening. Glad I checked before paying for a call-out!
One thing that often shows up alongside a sudden pressure change, especially after supply work: the water can come out discoloured or cloudy for a bit. If it does, the colour tells you a lot — cloudy/white that clears from the bottom up is just air (harmless), while brown/rusty points at disturbed sediment in the supply or tank. There's a thread on what causes brown or cloudy tap water and when to worry. So if the low-pressure spell came with discolouration, they're often the same event (supply/tank disturbance) — run the taps to clear it, and if it persists get the supply/tank checked.
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