Intermittent weaker water pressure in shower
October 21, 2017 3:33 PM Subscribe
We had an awesome shower setup with great water pressure, but for 4-5 months we have been experiencing intermittent lower pressure that ruins the deal. There isn't a noticeable rhyme or reason to when it happens, and it's only the shower that has this problem.
This question feels google-able, but the specifics are confounding me when searching.
Here are all of the relevant details:
The plumbing in the entire house is less than 6 years old - we had the entire thing replumbed, including the line from the street to the house, because it was all 60+ years old and crumbling. So everything, including the shower fixtures, is newish.
Most of the time, we notice the low pressure when we first turn the shower on, but occasionally the drop in pressure will happen while you are taking a shower. Obviously, you can feel the difference, but it's even audible - we can tell when we turn the water on whether there's good pressure or not. But the weaker pressure isn't so bad as to be a trickle... just an uncomfortably gentle flow. We prefer our shower to be of the skin-flailing strength. I also have startling amounts of hair and need all the help I can get for rinsing.
No water comes out of the faucet when this is happening... it's not like the diverter is just slipping. All the water is coming out of the shower head, it's just less water than usual.
The problem isn't reproducible - there is no predicting when it will happen.
The fix is... turn the water off and on 5-25 times (seriously) or wait 20 minutes and pray it has miraculously fixed itself.
It is definitely not related to time of day or whether any other water is running in the house. The problem doesn't occur in the bathroom or kitchen sink, which are probably the only places we could notice it. The dishwasher and washing machine seem fine. It doesn't matter whether either of those are running. The problems occurs when there is no water flowing anywhere else in the house.
It doesn't seem to be related to water temperature either. We have one of those all-in-one taps where you just turn the handle in a circle to make the water colder or hotter, but turning it all the way to cold or as hot as it can go doesn't affect the pressure at all.
Pretty sure it's not a clogged shower head, since the problem comes and goes.
We do not have hard water.
Also, we had awesome pressure for 5 years before this ever started happening.
We have this faucet and shower head, if it matters.
Replacing the faucet (that contains the diverter) did not fix the problem.
I know calling a plumber is the obvious answer, but a plumber told us (without coming to our house, just a friend who listened to the problem) to replace the diverter. We are cheap and don't want to tear up walls if it's an easier DIY fix.
Anybody have an insight?
This question feels google-able, but the specifics are confounding me when searching.
Here are all of the relevant details:
The plumbing in the entire house is less than 6 years old - we had the entire thing replumbed, including the line from the street to the house, because it was all 60+ years old and crumbling. So everything, including the shower fixtures, is newish.
Most of the time, we notice the low pressure when we first turn the shower on, but occasionally the drop in pressure will happen while you are taking a shower. Obviously, you can feel the difference, but it's even audible - we can tell when we turn the water on whether there's good pressure or not. But the weaker pressure isn't so bad as to be a trickle... just an uncomfortably gentle flow. We prefer our shower to be of the skin-flailing strength. I also have startling amounts of hair and need all the help I can get for rinsing.
No water comes out of the faucet when this is happening... it's not like the diverter is just slipping. All the water is coming out of the shower head, it's just less water than usual.
The problem isn't reproducible - there is no predicting when it will happen.
The fix is... turn the water off and on 5-25 times (seriously) or wait 20 minutes and pray it has miraculously fixed itself.
It is definitely not related to time of day or whether any other water is running in the house. The problem doesn't occur in the bathroom or kitchen sink, which are probably the only places we could notice it. The dishwasher and washing machine seem fine. It doesn't matter whether either of those are running. The problems occurs when there is no water flowing anywhere else in the house.
It doesn't seem to be related to water temperature either. We have one of those all-in-one taps where you just turn the handle in a circle to make the water colder or hotter, but turning it all the way to cold or as hot as it can go doesn't affect the pressure at all.
Pretty sure it's not a clogged shower head, since the problem comes and goes.
We do not have hard water.
Also, we had awesome pressure for 5 years before this ever started happening.
We have this faucet and shower head, if it matters.
Replacing the faucet (that contains the diverter) did not fix the problem.
I know calling a plumber is the obvious answer, but a plumber told us (without coming to our house, just a friend who listened to the problem) to replace the diverter. We are cheap and don't want to tear up walls if it's an easier DIY fix.
Anybody have an insight?
Have you removed the flow restrictor in your shower head? It can catch debris. It's there to help you use less water when you shower and thus be more eco-friendly, but if you prefer skin-flailing strength you might like to chuck it.
posted by cnidaria at 3:56 PM on October 21, 2017
posted by cnidaria at 3:56 PM on October 21, 2017
Seconding the clogged head. Mineral deposits can form and move around inside the tiny passages. Might be deep inside and not visible. There are products like CLR that supposedly you can soak things in and it dissolves the deposits. I’ve never bothered and usually have just replaced the offending shower head/sink faucet aerator completely.
posted by sol at 4:04 PM on October 21, 2017
posted by sol at 4:04 PM on October 21, 2017
I'm pretty sure the crud-in-the-filter thing is what's happening with one of my shower heads, since the water pressure is perfectly fine in the other one. I have yet to feel like taking it off to deal with it, but I think that's what the problem is. I read a bit about it when it first started happening and asked a plumber about it as well, and this can often happen if you have a water heater that's older, even if the plumbing is otherwise new, because sediment collects in water heaters over time. The plumber flushed out the sink faucet filter when he was here, as that had also had sediment collecting, and its weak flow improved.
posted by limeonaire at 7:17 PM on October 21, 2017
posted by limeonaire at 7:17 PM on October 21, 2017
If it was a clogged screen or something, cycling on/off or waiting 20 minutes shouldn't work. The first thing you can do for troubleshooting is take off the shower head and put on the cheapest Home Depot one and see if it does the same thing.
posted by ctmf at 10:28 PM on October 21, 2017
posted by ctmf at 10:28 PM on October 21, 2017
Do you live in a rural or rural-ish area which has a pump and tank somewhere in your supply chain? I ask because this happened with our water pressure both when we were on a well and when we lived in an area that had a tank-and-pump setup. The pressure drops when the tank gets low and has to fill.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:49 AM on October 22, 2017
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:49 AM on October 22, 2017
Response by poster: We took the shower head off, there were some teeny specks of black crud but we cleaned them out and that didn't help.
We do not have a well. Very urban area with water that comes from a main in the street less than 40 feet from said shower.
I guess we will try a new shower head next.
posted by raspberrE at 7:29 PM on October 23, 2017
We do not have a well. Very urban area with water that comes from a main in the street less than 40 feet from said shower.
I guess we will try a new shower head next.
posted by raspberrE at 7:29 PM on October 23, 2017
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We had similar symptoms once, and it was crap getting caught in the filter on the shower head. It would, apparently, bounce around in there and so was an intermittent problem.
Anyway, it's 40 seconds to check it - it just screws on the pipe. I'd give that a try.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 3:41 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]