Kinked Supply Lines Killing Cold Water Flow in Remodeled Bathroom

A brand-new remodel, beautiful double vanity, brushed gold faucets - and no cold water at either sink. That's exactly what we walked into on this job. The fixtures looked perfect. The countertop was flawless. But turn on the faucet and you'd get hot water only. Something was clearly off underneath.

When new plumbing doesn't perform the way it should, the problem usually isn't the fixture itself. It's what's happening behind the cabinet door. In this case, the supply lines feeding the cold water side had been kinked during the original install - pinched just enough to cut off flow almost completely. Easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Not so easy to live with.

We traced the issue back to how the lines were routed under the vanity. The braided supply lines had been bent at tight angles where they passed through the cabinet, and that restriction was doing its job a little too well - blocking cold water before it ever reached the faucet body. A straightforward diagnosis, but one that requires knowing what you're actually looking for.

Once we identified the problem, we rerouted and corrected the supply line connections at both valves, making sure the lines had a clean, unrestricted path from the shut-off to the faucet. No sharp bends. No pinch points. Both sinks now have full hot and cold flow the way they should have had from day one.

This kind of issue comes up more often than you'd think on newly remodeled bathrooms. The finish work looks great, but the plumbing rough-in or fixture hookup gets rushed - and the homeowner ends up troubleshooting something that should have worked from the start. If your new bathroom plumbing isn't performing right, it's worth having someone take a look before you assume it's a bigger problem.