Anyone on here good with plumbing?
My shower has a pretty steady drip out of the faucet. I've replaced the faucet itself and the cartridge where the handle turns on. No dice.
Today, I took it all apart and cleaned all the surfaces that mate together, and rubbed Vaseline into the O rings. It did not solve it. I watched YouTube videos on the subject and they all say to replace the cartridge.
Is there some reason it could bey shower head letting in air to the line or something? It's the detachable kind and I took it off the hook which temporarily stopped the dripping. We have pretty hard water, and the shower head has some calcium buildup.
What's my next move?
One handle Kohler. I just noticed that the drip gets faster after someone runs water elsewhere (maybe it was a coincidence)
Will do. Thanks for all the help! I'm willing to give it a shot, because I just looked and a new cart plus the... Other part, I can't remember what it was called was a total of $75 and I just don't have that right now. If sandpaper doesn't get me there, I guess it's just gonna drip for another month. At least it's not dripping down inside my wall.
Thank you! I'm starting to prefer coming here over anywhere else. You can't ask YouTube videos specific questions, and someone always comes through for me here
I had this happen one time and I'm no plumber but here's what me and my apartment's maintenance guy did:
- turn off only the hot water, then only the cold water to see which one was leaking
- once we IDed the hot water, he removed the hot water knob and then the like metal rod thing that goes into the wall, replaced the metal rod thing, then reattached the hot water knob
this is probably useless lol but hopefully someone handier than me can translate this into plumbspeak
Mine is a one handle type deal. Although, if I turn off the different water sources, it might help pinpoint what side of the thing is not working properly. The water coming out isnt particularly hot..
It's a Kohler. I replaced it so long ago, that I'm not sure we bought a name brand replacement. I definitely would have looked up the right one even if I bought an off brand one
I'm regards to the Vaseline... As they say, I know just enough to get myself in trouble :p will it be ok for a couple of days til I go get another cart?
Yeah, the water is plenty hot when I shower, I just meant the steady drip isn't really hot
Okay, long shot but calcium buildup can be fixed cheaply and easily, and even if it doesn't fix the problem it will make your shower head work better.
Buy some citric acid crystals and mix up a fairly strong batch, several tablespoons to a liter of water. Soak the shower head in it overnight so its completely submerged then use a hard brush to scrape off any residual scale.
Even if it doesn't solve the problem, citric acid is amazingly useful as a household cleaner for stuff like descaling and polishing. Just be sure to give it a quick google first cos obvs there are some things you do not want to risk mixing with acid and as always do not mix it with bleach or use it on stuff you also use bleach on. To be honest never mix any cleaning chemicals with bleach. You almost certainly know that about bleach anyway but it's so fucking dangerous it bears repeating just on the offchance.
I'll give that a shot at some point. We are also trying to clean off the calcium/rust buildup that accumulated near the drain. The people we bought our house from were apparently allergic to maintenance
Just went and tried it. That doesn't seem to make a difference anymore
That maybe not an immediate thing. But the switching thingy between faucet and shower (if you have it?) can get calcium build up, which prevents it fully closing and the water from shower hose slowly drips through it into faucet.
It never stops. I've tried emptying the hose out. I just don't know how it can get a source of water to even drip if the new cartridge is supposed to stop all water flow until the handle is turned. I even checked the valve to make sure it was closing all the way. There's a set screw in a piece of plastic that looks like it was meant to position the valve to allow it to stay open, and I fiddled with that a bit.
Thanks for the info! The set screw was never actually able to touch, so I guess the hot water was always on full bore