tub spout shower diverter

[Heathcliff]

OK this is not one of your serious life-threatening issues, but it has been bugging me.

Installed a new shower hardware set a couple months ago -- valve, tub spout, shower head. It is a mid-range set from Price-Pfister. It's very nice except: at first the shower diverter dingus on the tub spout would drop down by itself after you turned the water off (ending your shower), draining the water in the line leading to the shower head. But now it doesn't; if you forget to push it down manually, it just drips for hours but never drops back down. The old hardware did that too -- it was an el cheapo, but I thought that problem would go away when I put this nice, kind of heavy-duty new hardware in. Fondly do I recall my halcyon youth, when these things just worked. So, why don't they anymore? -- H

[Jeff Wisnia]

It's likely a matter of the height of the water column between the tub spout and the shower head and the static pressure created by a water column that high.

Most of 'em do that, but they generally fall back down by themselves when that water column gets lowered by the dripping. Yours may just be a little sticky too.

If you wanted to get anal about it you could figure out how much more weight you'd need to add to the plunger to overcome the static head and cure the problem, 'cause the back pressure when the shower's running is a lot more than the static head and would overcome the added weight.

Then you could machine up a nice brass gizmo of the correct weight, have it chromed at an outrageous "one piece" expense and epoxy it onto the diverter knob.

My advice.....Learn to live with it.

If it's the drip, drip, drip sound which bothers you, then a length of string tied onto the tub spout in just the right place will solve your problem.

Jeff

[Roger Shoaf]

Plumbers grease.