How To Troubleshoot a Leaky Showerhead | Ask This Old House

[@Michael1M6]

Legend has it that tub is still trying to full up with that reduction of water 😂

[@jasonsgroovemachine]

One thing I always appreciate about Richard is that he doesn't just say "It's this, I'll fix it." It's that he gets into how it works, where the problem is, why it's a problem, and how to fix it. We may disagree on phrasing sometimes but that's alright.

[@modulemodule]

If my dad was on this show it would be called Hold The Flashlight

[@richardb.5691]

OK. This is kind of a strange "fix". The new way of diverting water seems pretty dumb to me. Any reason for that change?

[@R_A_3000]

​@@modulemodule Lol yeah that's my dad too.

[@driqbal316]

I love the way you guys set up demo's to teach people what is going on. Thanks!

[@joshcowart2446]

Well actually!! Turning the gate valves doesn’t actually decrease the pressure. It will decrease the volume. It’s really just semantics because decreasing the volume does affect the pressure as fixtures are opened. I had a customer who didn’t have enough “pressure” to run more than once me fixture at a time. I put a pressure gauge on it and it show 65 psi which is more than enough. Turns out the issue was volume. The original builder had torn down one house and built two small houses on the property. They put two sub meters. The line coming off the city meter was 3/4. This is way too small to supply that amount of fixtures. I just replaced the1’ of 3/4” pipe from the city meter to where it split to the two sub meters with 1 1/4” pipe and it solved everything in both houses. That little bit of pipe changed it so they could run multiple faucets without issue.

[@crashland5711]

Right, what he did will make filling the tub an all-day affair.

[@joshcowart2446]

@@crashland5711 yeah, I think that fix could work if you came find the right balance. Based on the video though it’s turned way too far down

[@kalijasin]

Now he got low volume. 🙈

[@JohnDoe-jc3cl]

Quick fix at my house: just take showers A friend of mine said, “ you gotta know what you need to put your time and effort into . What needs to be fixed and what don’t “.

[@jptrainor]

I've seen this somewhere else recently. It was caused by using pex rather copper to plumb the shower. The pex fittings have a diameter reduction, and that caused the water to backup and dribble out the shower head when the faucet was running.

[@acb43211]

Dude probably didn't want to tear out all his tile work

[@keysthefreshman2696]

Yep that can happen. You can still plumb the whole shower with pex, as long as you make the pipe from the valve body to the tub spout copper. You can bring the hot and cold to the valve body with pex, and up to the showerhead with pex, but down to the tub spout needs to be copper. I believe the Delta universal valve body instructions even mention that as well

[@jej3451]

Which is bizarre, when you look at the tiny diameter of the openings in the valve -- much smaller than the pipe diameter. I don't get how the pipe can be the bottleneck, when the valve openings are so much smaller.

[@kalijasin]

Pex not as great as people make it out to be.

[@anthonylee6322]

He is a wealth of knowledge

[@jeffjeffjeff]

Am I crazy or did they turn the pressure WAAAAY down? Filling that tub is going to take forever, and showers are going to be really disappointing.

[@nick4leader]

I'm nowhere near the expert Richard is but I would have with the water running slowly adjust it just until the water stopped running out of the shower

[@reallunacy]

I'd suspect they dialed it in afterward.

[@JimDean002]

That was my thought too. They did this to be able to use the tub and it's now going to take an hour to fill it. And they have an 8-month-old.

[@kalijasin]

Turning gate valve down decreases volume.

[@JimDean002]

@@kalijasin True. and since the volume is now reduced enough to go through the spout without back pressure forcing the water up through the shower head, the water stops coming out up above.

[@jptrainor]

The demo was neat. It would have been interesting to have an input valve that could be have been dialed down to stop the simulated shower head dribble.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Great fix, take it down to 0.25 gpm flow rate.

[@poeticthoughts06]

Richard is the man!!

[@eraldway]

I had the same issue. Problem wasn’t the water pressure. Problem was that the valve on my bathtub was placed high as if it were a shower shortening the distance from the valve to the shower head. The same issue seems to be the case here. In a bath tub the distance from the valve to the bath spout shouldn’t excess 11 or 12 inches. This leaves a longer pipe from the valve to the shower heard. Water will still climb up this pipe but there wouldn’t enough pressure to go all way out of the shower head. Reducing the water pressure didn’t work for me as water was still coming out.

[@33cvu11]

Instead of reducing the volume of water to the shower/tub, he could have install a shutoff valve on the shower arm before the shower head.

[@josephb6450]

And that would require punching a hole in the wall, which is cost prohibitive

[@kalijasin]

That’s a good idea

[@readyplayer2]

It's like you didn't watch the whole video. This was a quick, simple, cheap fix and they touch on that at the end.

[@Engineer9736]

Don’t know if the homeowners will find that looking nice. And it impedes the user friendliness if you have 6 different valves to control while showering

[@Cravz69]

Using a helper, they could probably open the valve in the basement a little more until just before it starts coming out the showerhead.

[@rwayle]

Okay you fixed the problem but seems like there's almost no water coming out of the tap now...

[@HAMRADIOJOE4178]

NICE WORK

[@skim193]

man... the wisdom

[@todd2456]

Richard bolted before the pour lad could check the shower pressure. He will be back down in the basement by tonight to increase the pressure.

[@dltorres17]

Question: so I just had a bathroom remodeled. It had no shower head plumbing and I believe mostly galvanized pipe. Anyways, the guy I hired used all pex. Before paying him, I turned the tube on and my shower head would leak. Further research, it's because he used pex from the diverter to the tub spout. Anyways, I needed him to fix but obviously he wasn't going to cut the new tile. So he had access to the back of the shower portion. He ended up changing the tub spout that he has pex to copper, to 1/2 galvanized pipe and the pex from the diverter to the shower head 1/2 galvanized pipe. He fixed the issue which was great. But, obviously I wish it wasn't galvanized. Anyways is this a big issue for me or should I be okay for many years before it starts to break down?

[@johnbenson4672]

I just installed a new shower & tub faucet and have the same issue. I was worried that I had a defective kit.

[@autoimmunitycurse]

Isnt it the height of tube from valve to head? 46 or 48 inches minimum?

[@zizibe218]

Please help! We replaced the shower cartridge multiple times Moen 1222 and yet our shower head still leaks water at random times. Is it the valve?

[@ShadowzGSD]

nothing to do with pressure, pressure is the same even when turning the valves down, it is the flow rate that was the problem.

[@jptrainor]

There's a pressure drop across the valve he closed. If there was a guage we'd see the drop. There's also a reduction in flow rate. They go hand in hand. The only difference between him closing the valve and putting in a pressure reducer is that the reducer is a valve that is regulated. Either way, it's still just a valve that gets closed.

[@bernardhernandez2396]

What if you have a well water supply living in a rual area ?

[@virgil3241]

Does the piece with the tub spout removed have no caulking, because there was no caulking on the tub spout itself to keep water from getting behind the wall. While this is a fix in the video, bath time will take forever with that super low pressure, and the shower as well we be basically low flow.. Shame the only real fix is to tear the tile off and do a proper valve, especially after a fresh renovation

[@woodsmatful]

Like how the caulk was removed first.

[@eduardoig17]

That is not a solution for me. Now you have very low water pressure. What if someone wants to take a shower? Ill that even work now that there is lower then normal water pressure?

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Richard should put his head down in shame on this one. Absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable results. Not much different than if he were to just shut the entire water off and say, "hey, now you have no problem with the leak at all! I'm amazing!"

[@tretre1692]

I bet the home owner is extremely smart and is an engineer! Jealous of the “study!”

[@blrando75]

What if it's occasionally only dripping out the head of faucet and not the shower head? 🤔 Like literally drip drip drip. Drip.....drip drip..then repeated ugh frustrating

[@armandomadrigal9793]

My shower was doing the same thing, I installed a ball valve before the shower head

[@joseluiscastaneda1398]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FRIENDS I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU DO IN THE CONSTRUCTION....... HERE WHERE I AM IT IS A CONSTANTLY RACE AGAINST TIME .... I AM CLOSE TO PASO TEXAS IF SOMEONE KNOWS HOW TO SPEAK IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE TELL ME WHAT IT IS

[@ja8898]

The professional goes to fix a machine, looks it over for a few minutes, then tightens one bolt. It works perfect. He sends a bill for $1,000. The client is furious! $1,000!? How do you figure, you just tightened one bolt! The professional says: 1 Bolt: $0.50. The years of experience to know which bolt: $999.50. That's Richard.

[@monsterp.g.1741]

I tried that with a customer from Indian he just wanted to give me 0.50 cents.😂

[@frankorzyszpon656]

My shower head drips a few minutes after use and stops several minutes later. Is there a fix for that?

[@saulgoodman2018]

Won't not they be less pressure in the showerhead?

[@alittlemoore1]

If the valve was installed upside down, would it have caused the same effect with the water pressure having to overcome gravity?

[@balkaraulakh5131]

Nope

[@kenmore01]

That could be. Looking at how the water comes out of the larger hole down to the tub and if that's restricted, it goes through the smaller hole to the shower, if it was upside down, the tub water would have to flow through that restriction so it likely would back up to the shower.

[@balkaraulakh5131]

The ones I've come across had the same fitting top and bottom. Probably others that dont

[@kenmore01]

@@balkaraulakh5131 that is most likely a water saving thing. The o rings they put in shower heads to restrict water flow is too easy to defeat, so they probably started putting them in the valves.

[@BrooksLorenson]

Then the plumber leaves and you go to run a bath at night for your kid and you have a new problem. Bath time takes 2 hours for the tub to fill up enough and you get to call the plumber again 🙃

[@richardwilliams5387]

There's nothing stopping the homeowner from saying "Wow. Thanks for fixing it but what about X?". They have limited screen time per segment per episode, There's every possibility the final result isn't in the edit they're just showing the fix in broad strokes.

[@larrymoore6640]

I like a good strong shower, I think I would be disappointed.

[@mrsoccergod5001]

Hes gonna have no water pressure when it's time to shower

[@ohasis8331]

That homeowner's water pressure has dropped right off. It would make for a lousy shower and take the bath forever to fill.

[@oiboy626]

By turning down isolation valves, you reduced the flow. Yes, solve the “high pressure” problem but you reduced the amount of water as well. We do a lot of irrigation out here in California and I see this a lot. People just turn down their valves to “reduce” their pressure but also limit the amount of flow in the system and wonder why their system is inefficient.

[@powerg3824]

What a bad fix, this is teaching people the wrong way to fix this issue

[@BamBamBigelow.]

CRL soaking? Keep it cheap, guys😳

[@kenmore01]

Not a fan of how this was solved.

[@mikev.1034]

👍🤘🤙

[@johnlebzelter4208]

Here come all the “pros” comments 😂

[@justinballard7242]

He needs a pressure regulator

[@kalijasin]

Now he got low volume 🙈

[@Bentz99]

Now the shower won’t have pressure

[@Travis66421]

Sounds like a shortcut to me. Not a "fix"

[@sal5162]

Sacrafised water perssure for a "fix" no way!

[@Guardducks]

I thought it was leaky shower, remodel bathroom. Well, that's what my wife says anyways.

[@TheSlipperyNoodle]

Bet he has pex going down to the tub spout.

[@pqrstsma2011]

complaining about the shower water pressure being too high.... first-world problems.... 🙄😒

[@pmiller91]

This is a bad explanation and bad solution.

[@richardwilliams5387]

Love armchair "experts" critiquing someone doing things professionally for literal decades.

[@inthedarkwoods2022]

It was a cheap fix

[@Sdjoinery]

First comment 😊

[@johnlebzelter4208]

@Steven Davanna Awww do you want a wittle trophy? Will that make you feel better?

[@Sdjoinery]

@@johnlebzelter4208 if you’re offering mate 😊 how kind of you

[@johnlebzelter4208]

@@Sdjoinery Cleary your un-educated and don’t know what “sarcasm” is. Keep embarrassing yourself! No one cares who is first. You are just embarrassing yourself and making it easy to prey upon.

[@Burps___]

Follow-up with homeowner: "Richard's solution worked, no more leaky shower head. I turned the valve back up to high so I can take a shower in something more than a sea mist, but at least I know I'm not losing my mind." 🧠🧼