Some of you may remember that I just moved after buying a house. We've never had a house with well and septic systems before. We have a water softener and whole house water filter hooked up. The brand is WaterSoft. The house is 10 years old, so it is not an old system. I know nothing about these systems, so I have no idea if it's a good brand or product, and don't know anything about troubleshooting them.

Anyway, we have a couple of issues we want to deal with, so we're going to call a local WaterSoft rep and have them come out, look at the system, explain everything to us, and try to fix our issues.

First, the water pressure is awful. The pressure gauge by the softener reads 48 psi, but I think it's BS. Our neighbors say theirs is fine after changing a filter, so the water table shouldn't be the problem. The previous owners changed the filter in January, I believe, before we closed on the house, and the pressure has been the same all along, so I don't think it is related to the filter. Needs to be changed soon anyway, but we can't seem to get the top twisted off (another reason to call the rep).

Anyway, every faucet and shower has terrible pressure. It makes showering very difficult, as it takes forever to wash off soap from skin and out of hair. Dish washing is annoying as well. If I have time before our appointment, I am going to try to see if there are any deposits in the faucets, but I don't think there are.

Second, I think there may be some air in the system. The bathroom faucets and the shower heads blow air when they are used. The thing that baffles me, however, is the shower. After about 10 minutes of use, you can hear the pressure changing (some of this might be air as well), and suddenly, the water pressure goes up. Sadly, it only lasts a couple of minutes, then it goes to a dribble once again. It's extremely frustrating.

We can forget about running the dishwasher or clothes washer when showering. The pressure is absolutely intolerable. Made that mistake once, never again.

Also, probably unrelated to the softener, our shower temperature is very difficult to control. It seems to have a mind of its own. It's a one-lever type where you just turn it to however hot and cold you want the water. The problem is, the temp seems to differ all the time, so I never know where to put it. The temp will not adjust if you move it after you've turned it on; you have to turn it off completely, then try to guess (again ) where the right temp will be. It gets even more effed up if someone has already taken a shower recently. It's ridiculous, and also kind of a safety issue, as you can easily get scalded by guessing wrong....which has happened more than a few times.

So, just looking forward to hopefully getting some answers and solutions. Whatever it is, I can hope it's not expensive to fix/adjust, but our sanity is worth some money as well.