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wrote:
Folks,

I'm hoping someone could help with a problem i have with a garden tap.
I've recently moved in to a house about 4 years old, the garden tap
looks like it was installed in a couple of minutes by the housing
developer straight through the kitchen wall to the garden. There is a
T piece from the cold water pipe under the sink, the main pipe goes
along the back of the cabinet a few inches then up the kitchen sink
tap and the other goes up a couple of inches and then straight out
through the wall to a tap. There is a stop tap up from the T piece to
shut water off to the garden.

With the stop tap fully open the garden tap as extremely low flow of
water, hardly enough to move a sprinkler connected with any length of
pipe. If i run the cold tap in the kitchen sink for a couple of
seconds the flow increase and the sprinkler is able to work, but only
covers 4-5 feet either side.

The kitchen sink taps are fine as are every other tap in the house.
I'm wondering whether the stop tap or i guess there is a one way valve
somewhere in the piper before the tap to prevent contaminants from
coming back up the garden tap to the water supply. But before I take
anything apart I wondered if anyone could recommend a place to start?

Thanks in advance

Ben.

Ben,

There could be an anti-siphon valve in the tap body itself that's causing
the problem.

Try taking the tap itself off and then see if that improves the water flow
from the open end - failing that, (if I recall correctly - and the plumbers
here will correct me if I'm wrong) it's possible to put a stop tap on the
'wrong way' around which will either cut the water off or, drastically
reduce the flow.

To confirm this, look on the stop-tap and there should be an arrow which
will point the way the water must flow through it - that's presuming it's a
'proper' stop tap and not just a gate valve or an in-line service valve.

Failing that, have a look at each section of the pipework feeding this tap
for partial blockages.

Brian G