Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.
My parents have a 2100 sq. ft. 4 BR, 3 bath home of which the master suite was an addition and fed by a 2nd hot water tank. A couple weeks back I had to replace the cartridge in my mom’s shower faucet (addition). It was dripping almost in a steam. No big deal, took 10 minutes.
Today my brother took a shower in the hall bath (original part of the house) and when he went to get out, the water wasn’t shutting off completely. I took it apart thinking the knob may have stripped or something, but when it became clear that wasn’t it I shut the water off at the meter and took it completely apart. When I took the cover off the cartridge almost fell out. I inspected it, all the o rings appeared to be there and in good shape, so I snapped it back in place, put it all back together, and turned the water back on. Problem solved.
Tonight, when Mrs. Conductor went to shower in the back bathroom (same part of the house as the hall bathroom) the water pressure was crazy. It had always been lower than the hall bath, but being at the end of the house I never took much exception. Now it’s got awesome pressure! I’m fairly certain you could get satisfactory clean without any soap at all. It’s at least double what it was before.
Obviously this is a good thing, but I can’t help but wonder why the sudden spike.
My theory is that the cartridge in the hall, which is ahead of the back room along the line, was loose or improperly seated to start with allowing some degree of pressure and was causing anything beyond that point to be affected.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Huh. Don’t know what could be going on there. Don’t know how a dirty or leaky cartridge can effect the pressure at another location. Were both locations on at the same time? Maybe you loosened some sediment out. I would like to know if you find out.
The cartridge on my hall shower has to be replaced. Drives me nuts. I can turn the water on to fill the tub and it will also come out the shower head. I took it out and cleaned it as best I could. Hate it.
That is weird. I have no idea. Why don’t things like that happen to me. Usually it’s reversed. I put it back and it worse.
I’m at a loss, non of that should effect water pressure unless they both were leaking constantly loosing some pressure to them. Now that you fixed them your pressure is built back up.
You said that you shut off the main and then turned it back on maybe it wasn’t on all the way before! Or it was just hard water built up in the main valve. Either way two birds one stone nice job.
Harold Wray wrote:
Huh. Don’t know what could be going on there. Don’t know how a dirty or leaky cartridge can effect the pressure at another location. Were both locations on at the same time? Maybe you loosened some sediment out. I would like to know if you find out.
The cartridge on my hall shower has to be replaced. Drives me nuts. I can turn the water on to fill the tub and it will also come out the shower head. I took it out and cleaned it as best I could. Hate it.
I agree this is interesting…