Here's a trick that we used in an area that had hard water with resulting build up in the pipe....if it works it could get you by for a few years......we made up fittings that would either screw directly on to the pipe or to the faucet aerator. In this fitting we used a male and female quick connect like you would find used in air tools. We would hook a compressor up to this, turn the water on and blow air into the line. With the compressor still running quickly disconnect the "quick connect". Water and grit will blow out of the line....it will be like sandblasting so you have to be carefull of your eyes and anything elset that could be damaged. We would do this over and over for 20 or 30 minutes if necessary. Each time we would see and increase in water flow. When it got to the point of being satisfactory, we'd stop. You will find that with lots of minerals in the water this problem will develop with pipes that are not used for a long time. We had this in old mobile homes where the water was shut off and drained for the winter. With the ones that were not shut off, we never had a serious problem. It will take a little poking around to come up with the fittings to make the tool that I've described above, but it should work. We once had a straight main, galvanized supply coming into a house that had the same problem. We took off the valve and ran a small electric snake down the line. The water and grit blew out like you wouldn't believe. We did that about 15 yrs. ago and I think that supply line is still feeding the house. This last one is probably not going to be accepted by local authorities if you have a munnicipal supply:-) mark

Novice, condensation on cold water pipes can be a very serious problem. It is particularly ornery in humid environments, which might include your kitchen. We had to wrap steel and copper pipes with insulating material to prevent this in our basement, and I've even seen pipes that feed fire sprinkler systems do this to the point of damaging the ceiling directly beneath them. You might beg, borrow, or buy a dehumidifier and run it for a short time in your kitchen to see how much it collects and also to see whether it stops the drip from your pipes. Your plumber who suggested keeping the ceiling open was doing you a favor, I think. The fact that the drips are not constant suggests condensation. After all, a pipe has fairly constant pressure on it, and a hole is a hole. If the moisture comes and goes I'd argue "condensation" because the moisture content of your kitchen can vary a great deal (are you grilling outside some days and boiling pasta in the kitchen on others, for example.) Notice: I ain't a professional and YMMV. Good luck, M

>>>"I wash kitchen towels once a week (I have a deep drawer in the kitchen that holds many) in hot water. Should I run hot more often? Hard to say without actually taking the washer apart to look at the outside of the drum and the inside of the containment tub in which the drum rotates. Residue build-ups vary with your home's water chemistry, how you have been dosing the detergent, how high a temperature the washer's "hot" setting yields, whether you use chlorine bleach, whether you use fabric softener, and other factors. Does your washer have a tub cleaning cycle? I'd run that at least monthly or whatever your washer's manual recommends. If your washer does not have a tub cleaning cycle, you can run an empty load with the hottest wash temperature and as many extra rinses as the machine will provide, a couple of cups of chlorine bleach, and no detergent. If you've never run a drum cleaning cycle before, I would start checking sudsing during the washing part of the cycle and during each rinse. If you see suds without needing to shine a flashlight through the window in the washer door to see them, your washer already has some build-up of residues and you'll probably want to run more cleaning cycles until you no longer see sudsing. If your washer drains (or can drain) into a laundry sink, that makes it even easier to check for sudsing. It's okay if you see sudsing in the wash cycle but you'll want to run another tub cleaning cycle if you see a lot of sudsing in the last rinse. If you find sudsing in your drum cleaning cycles, you also might want to check your towels (particularly bath towels) for residue build-up. (IME, those seem most apt to collect residues.) What I do is occasionally run a load of towels through a wash cycle without any detergent and check for sudsing.

That seems like a lot of work for very little gain. Why do you want to do this?