The tap runs thin and nobody will blame the plumber: five gentle fixes

A tap that sighs instead of running is one of the most misdiagnosed faults in a house with stored water - everyone reaches for the pump, the "pressure problem," the plumber's invoice. Most thin flow is mineral and grit, caught deliberately by the fixtures the engineers designed to catch it - and those traps are meant to be cleaned, not worshipped.

Three minutes, in order

• The aerator. Every modern tap has a threaded mesh screen in its nose to mix air into the stream and meet water-efficiency rules - which also makes it a perfect sediment sieve. Unscrew it (a coin edge or fingers; cloth if it's chromed), soak the little insert in vinegar for twenty minutes, brush its mesh soft, refit. This single job fixes more "low-pressure taps" than any plumber in the city will admit to doing.
• The shut-offs that were never reopened. After any tank work, a tap under the sink, or the isolated fixture's own valve, someone turned and half-turned: check the tap's isolation valves and the fixture's inlet connections - and the storage tank's own outlet valve, which the handyman closes "while at it" and then never remembers. A main that is a quarter turn from open makes the whole house run thirsty - the same symptom as a failing pump, at the cost of a wrist.
• The single-lever mixer's cartridge. A mixer only hot or only cold or stubborn in the middle usually has debris in the cartridge - isolate both lines, undo the handle, pull the cartridge, flush the seat, check the little rubber seals and the flow-restrictor washer in the inlet for grit - then refit, and if it still runs the same, the same cartridge is a shelf item at any serious plumbing counter for less than a plumber's call-out.
• Kitchen and bathroom taps are different animals: the pull-out kitchen spray head has its own clog-prone face plate - soak its face in vinegar in a bag tied around the head for an hour; the showerhead with its rubber nubs is meant to be rubbed clean with a thumb while running - every nub that clears is a millilitre you got back.
• Grit from the tank itself. If the aerators keep clogging weekly, the problem is upstream - the sediment sock from the well article (change it; grey, not white, means it is doing its job), or the tank needs its own cleaning day - and that is a whole separate page on this desk.

When it is genuinely pressure

Thin flow at every fixture at once, the tank full, the valves wide open, the aerators clean - then and only then is it a pump, a header height or a partially collapsed supply line. The order matters because each step above costs a few minutes, and the pump question costs money. A plumber who arrives and reaches for a new pump before the aerator list is the man this article exists to protect you from.