8 inch Shower Head dribbling!

[richard.lister]

Hi, this is the second time this strange phenomenom has occurred. I do hope one of you can tell me why.

I have an 8 inch flat victorian head shower directly above the person. It's repo one as part of a full kit, thermostac valve, ye olde handle type thing.

It has enough pressure for water to come out of all the little holes...usually.

But....after removal for cleaning (embarassingly only twice!)the water is still coming from each little hole but not with enough pressure to fall onto my head. In fact they are all joining up so as only about 5 streams of water fall onto me.

Any ideas? It's almost as if the pressure has just dropped fractionally stopping a decent spray. But how can taking the head off cause it.

Last time it happened it took about 2 months before it restored to a decent flow.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. cheers, Richard

[Sparks]

How is the water supplied to this, from the mains?

Maybe the holes were restricted with crud/scale, now after you have cleaned it, the holes are now all slightly bigger, requiring more flow?

Sparks...

[richard.lister]

header tank. Hmmmmm...so you reckon I should block some of the holes up?

Sparks wrote:

[Sparks]

It sounds like this is the problem, as you say it happened when it was cleaned before.

You could try blocking up some of the holes. Try blocking some holes (Spread out, to keep the balance of the spray). If you can access the rear of the holes, then it is probably easier to block them from this side!

Sparks...

[Biggles]

Sounds like there is not enough pressure/flow for the head that you have

- i.e after cleaning the holes are too big. You need to ask yourself if it was OK when new - i.e. was the shower OK when first fitted?

If the answer is yes, then you need to figure out why the pressure/flow has been reduced - either the pressure to the shower valve is reduced or the valve itself is misbehaving or clogged up.

If the answer no, then you know why cleaning brings the problem back. You may be able to replaced the shower head with one with smaller diameter holes.

If the answer is don't know, then it's possible that the shower is not suitable for the current supply and you need to consider increasing the pressure/flow or perhaps replacing the head.

If you do replace the head with one with smaller holes, you'll have to clean it more often :-)

Biggles

[bigcat]

sounds like theres little or no pressure drop across the holes in the head. As it rescales this will fix itself, but that wont happen quickly. One way to fix it is to spray paint the bit of the head with the holes in, from the back, which will reduce the hole diameters and restore water spraying.

Another option is just to put waterproof tape over some of the holes, again on the back.

Next time, dont descale it, until it is having problems with excess scale, and then only partially descale it. Your flow rate is too low for the head design, and its the scale thats making it work right. It takes a whole lotta water to run an 8" head.

NT

[Sparks]

A better option of course, would to add a shower pump to boost the pressure, but this is a lot more involved than simply blocking some holes up (and will use more water)

Sparks...

[OldBill]

I fitted one of those in a property. If its not fed by a combi or pump then the flow will be pretty poor. They can drench you with gallons/minute when they're working properly.