Plumbing/water pressure question

Hope there’s a plumber or contractor who can answer this. Yesterday we called out a plumber, thinking we had a leak under the kitchen sink. Water had begun seeping out from the cabinet beneath the sink, and looking underneath we couldn’t see where the water was coming from. Long story short: Turns out the handheld sprayer wasn’t screwed in tightly. The plumber arrived, turned the water on, pulled the sprayer out whereupon we immediately saw water spraying out around the joining part where the sprayer screws in. He screwed it in tightly, the spewing water stopped, problem fixed just that easily. Great.

Now he says “Where’s your water heater? I’ll check your water pressure.” We had never mentioned water pressure. Never had a problem with water pressure in the time we’ve been here (over a year). Just spontaneously he says he wants to check it. I walk him out to the garage. He goes over to the water heater, takes out what looked like a wrench, reaches in and does something I can’t really see. He says “your pressure’s 55, that’s fine.”
I say that’s great, we’ve never had any issue with the water pressure.

I pay him the service call fee (no charge for tightening the sprayer). He goes on his way.

It’s now a little more than 24 hours later. We have barely any water pressure. It’s a trickle in all the taps throughout the house and flushing toilets do not fill back up as they should.

Question: Might he have done something to mess up the water pressure when he “checked” it? I know coincidences do happen, but it sure seems like a massive coincidence that we never had a single issue with water pressure, this guy comes and “checks” it, and now our water is barely coming out the taps or toilet. Help??

I assumed he crouched down near the bottom of the water heater and attached a meter to the spigot, right? He shouldn’t have done anything else. Did he go anywhere else, touch anything else, put his hand on another valve, go anywhere out of your sight?

The only thing he could have easily done was have moved your main water shutoff almost all the way into the closed position. You could go and check that pretty easily yourself. I guess there’s a small chance he could have done it at the street, but I doubt it. That’s where I’d start.

For the record, if I found out that he did that, I’d crap all over his FB page and write bad reviews for him anywhere I could.

One other thing, did he shut off your house water at any point to do the work? He may have done that if your sink didn’t have it’s own shutoffs. In that case, it’s possible he didn’t fully turn it back on, even by accident. It’s also possible for sediment to make it’s way to the aerators when the water is turned back on. Again, that’s something you can check yourself (pull off some aerators and make sure there isn’t anything in them, make sure there isn’t any slime building up on the outside of them either).

Did you check the pressure at the hose bibs outside? Sounds like something just came loose and blocked the main supply line. It might clear itself or you may have to narrow it down to where it is blocked. See if your neighbors are having any problem.

Thanks for replies. Joey, what you describe him doing sounds like what I saw him do at the water heater. He never left my sight. Went straight from kitchen sink out to the water heater in garage, with me right behind him. He was in the house less than 10 minutes total.

All moot, turns out. I now know it wasn’t anything he did, rather a contractor hit a main water line and disrupted service all over this neighborhood. Talk about crazy coincidences!! I found this out when I spoke to the plumbing mgr. at the place who’d sent out the technician. Knowing it sounded like a crazy story (aka “lie”) he suggested I check with the county water dept. or even local news websites, which I did and confirmed what he said. Sure enough, our pressure is gradually returning to normal as the county is in the process of repairing the contractor’s damage.

But yes, Joey, I was prepared to leave scathing reviews all over the web if it had turned out they were scammers (I also make a point to leave positive reviews when applicable; I think too many people only bother with reviews when it’s a negative). Thanks again you guys for the replies. Really glad it turns out to be the county’s headache and not ours. Just goes to show, never rule out what seems to be a really “impossible” coincidence. Lesson learned!

Now, do me a favor and call them back to let them know. I run a small business and we get accusations all the time, but no one ever calls back to say 'hey, it was nothing, sorry I called the health department and told them you gave me food sickness, threatened to sue you and you had to get your insurance company involved…turns out it was just a virus going around the office and the person at the hospital told me the same thing you did, if I ate lunch at your place and picked something up, I wouldn’t have been sick 15 minutes later, it would have been the next day". Once in a while, that would be nice.
Once in a while, it would be nice if someone would call back and say “sorry I accused your cashier of stealing 20 bucks from me, when I got home I found it in my other pocket”.

I’m not saying you accused them, but an update might make them feel better, you never know, but that manager could very well be sitting there thinking ‘WTF did John do now, this is like the 3rd complaint we’ve had about him this year?’. Even an email.

I agree with Joey.