My shower only works when it wants to.....Help please?!

Question

We bought an old abandoned house that has a lot of quirks. One of them is that the shower only works sometimes after you've turned it on and off several times. (Its only a shower, no tub and its located in a back hallway type laundry room addition. Not in the bathroom, which is just a toilet and sink). It makes a loud squeak and a thump but only boiling hot water dribbles out. Our water heater is new and is located in the attic. All the other fixtures in the house have no problem at all ever. My husband swears that if he turns the water on in the kitchen sink it helps to get the shower to work. I haven't had any luck with this method. Sometimes if you turn it on and off many many times it will work, sometimes I just give up and try later. Sometimes it goes right on with no problem. I don't get it, any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

On the back of the valve is a seat and rubber washer that closes the valve, it is held in with a s***w that has probably come loose and it isn't letting the water through. You'll need to shut off the main water and get inside the valve to fix it or call a plumber.

Answer 2

If it ever runs full blast,,,,, then it is not the pipes.  Meaning you do not have a build up of scale in the pipe.

So, that leaves the head and the valves.

The head is the easist to mess with, usually.  Get some rags and some wrenches,,,and gently, oh so gently, remove the head.  Try not and turn the pipe, only the head.  Once you have it off,,,,inspect and clean out the head.  Make sure you don't have a build up of trash, debris, calcium, etc.  

With the head off, try the shower a couple of times, to see if you consistantly have good flow.  If not,,,, it could be the valves.  If so,,,the head is the problem.  You may want to consider making a switch to newer, low flow head, at this time.

If you think it's the valve, you may have some thing broken in the valve that makes opening the water pathway a problem.  Look up on line about how to change the washers,,,,pull the guts out,,,,as if you are changing the washers,,,,and clean, replace the washers since it is out, etc.  

Hopefully, this will solve the problem.  

You could have something strange, but I would start with these two things first.  

Answer 3

I am a plumber. Your discription of the problem is a good one that will go in my "have a giggle file".

Seriously it sounds like it is a system problem. Your hot water heater is only part of the system. You realy do need to get a plumber to have a good look. I would sugest you contact a well established plumbing business and tell them to come and have a good look then advise you of your options. They may need to be there for a couple of hours but it would be money well spent.

Answer 4

As others have said, seems likely you have some debris or loose parts in the valve or shower head itself, take apart and clean.  Which brings me to a very strange story in my house years ago.

My hot water was doing something similar, at most any faucet.  If I turned it on slowly, it was OK, but increasing the flow caused it to practically cut off and just dribble, and sometimes quite a racket ensued from somewhere in the plumbing.

I traced the racket to a water flow restrictor near the boiler - it is a small fitting mounted vertically on the input water pipe to the boiler, internally it has a smaller passage to limit the flow rate so the water doesn't pass thru the boiler too fast and cool off.

Well, unsoldered it out of there, nothing seemed wrong.  Then turned on the water to insure the flow was OK there, of course rather gushing on the garage floor.  But in the gush came a bit of a broken s***w head.  

Ah, hah!  When the water flow increased enough, this head would be carried up to the restrictor thingy, and wouldn't fit thru the passage, but would partially or almost completely block water flow.  If the flow would decrease enough, the s***w head would drop back down, only to be pushed up again by the water flow, thus producing the oscillating vibrating sound.

Now how in heck can you guess something like this would happen?  I checked all the valves upstream but didn't find a broken s***w, it may have been replaced but the broken bit stayed in the plumbing and worked its way to the restrictor valve.

It's a long story, but something that drove me crazy for, I think, months; and your problem certainly sounds in the same vein.

Answer 5

your old pipes might be galvanized ,rusty and clogged with tree roots..you might have to use a "snake" to clean them out or replace them with copper pipe..you can also save money by calling a friend or a family member who knows plumbing..good luck..

Answer 6

theoretically, this is impossible. The water is under pressure  and should burst out as soon as you turn on the faucet. The valves should have no problem opening as long as you are able to turn it. You said the hot water heater is in the attic. Are you sure your well pump has enough pressure to push the water all the way up to the attic. This is the ONLY possible thing that could be going on.

You might need to add a pressure tank to your setup.

Answer 7

If your shower has one handle that rotates to get you hot and cold water, the valve inside may be bad. On the valve itself, there are rubber pieces, that form the seal inside as you are turning it on or off or going from hot to cold. It is not uncommon for a valve as old as yours to have the rubber seals come off as they are just glued on there. If they did dislodge, then they would cover up the lines where the water is supplied from or to where it's going (the shower head).