I have a shower head that Drips in my tub shower even when the shower lever is not pulled. I am told that this is a pressure problem since there is nothing wrong with the spout and there are no plugged lines. I have heard that a "double ell" will solve this problem. I have never seen one before and believe they are only available from plumbing supply shops. Has anyone ever used one before?
I think whoever told you that was trying to describe an installation where the pipe feeding the shower head goes up past the height of the shower head and then turns around and comes back down to it, behind the wall. This increases the height which back pressure from flow through the tub spout and its pipe has to lift water to cause the drip you're getting. The "double ell" you heard dedcribes the U-turn in the piping fabricated from two elbows. (One can be a "street ell" and the other a normal elbow, or use two normal elbows and a short nipple)
You'll probably find this prohibitively difficult or expensive to install in a finished bathroom.
If all you're getting is a little dripping, then the "shower arm" (The chrome pipe coming out of the wall going to the shower head.) must be right below the critical height, and forcing a little more water lift could make it go away. You could try this:
Come out of the wall with a threaded nipple, screw an ell on its end pointing up. Screw another nipple (as tall as needed) into that ell, and finally screw on another ell with a short shower arm and the nozzle screwed into it. It'll be a bit clutzy, but should stop the drip. If you can find chromed pieces for all the parts it might not look all that bad.
They sell little chromed shower control valves you could buy and install between the shower arm and shower head to positively stop the water flow, but you'd have to open it every time you wanted to shower.
But:
I'm not sure what you meant by "shower lever". Were you refering to an actual "lever like" handle which is part of the water control valve assembly and operates a diverter valve, like the little lever on the ubiquitous Symmons "Temptrol" tub/shower valves? Or, were you describing a plunger on the tub spout which you pull up to close off the tub flow and redirect the water to the shower head?
If it's the former, than maybe there's something wrong with the diverter valve which can be fixed with a new seal or something.
If the latter, are you certain there's nothing wrong with the tub spout? Have you taken it off and let the water flow into the tub out of the pipe the spout screws onto. If you do that, is that "shower drip" still present? If it isn't, then maybe a different model spout might be enough to make the problem go away.
Goof Luck,
Jeff
Mike Bittel wrote:
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