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hashman · Jun 6, 2005, 10:45 AM

I have a shower with 2 pipes for showers heads (one on the wall in front, and one on a side wall). The wall in front has a rain shower head on it. The wall to the side has a hand held shower head attached. The pipe with the hand held shower attached has a push button valve to turn the handheld on and off. When it is on, the rain shower head continues to operate.

I have 2 problems.
First, the rain shower head is shooting water out of the seam where it appears the bottom half of the shower head meets the top half of the shower head. If you were looking at if from above, the water shoots out from the perimeter of the shower head, not where the shower head screws onto the pipe. Any thoughts on how to resolve this? I have tried purchasing a new rain shower head and found the same problem with the new shower head. Could this be too much pressure?

Second problem, too little pressure in the hand held shower head. I've tried all the basics, of removing any low flow filter, and cleaning the shower head. Could this be related to too much pressure on the other shower head?

Flickit · Jun 7, 2005, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by hashman

I have a shower with 2 pipes for showers heads (one on the wall in front, and one on a side wall). The wall in front has a rain shower head on it. The wall to the side has a hand held shower head attached. The pipe with the hand held shower attached has a push button valve to turn the handheld on and off. When it is on, the rain shower head continues to operate.

I have 2 problems.
First, the rain shower head is shooting water out of the seam where it appears the bottom half of the shower head meets the top half of the shower head. If you were looking at if from above, the water shoots out from the perimeter of the shower head, not where the shower head screws onto the pipe. Any thoughts on how to resolve this? I have tried purchasing a new rain shower head and found the same problem with the new shower head. Could this be too much pressure?

Second problem, too little pressure in the hand held shower head. I've tried all the basics, of removing any low flow filter, and cleaning the shower head. Could this be related to too much pressure on the other shower head?

... handheld showerhead on and then the rain showerhead to see if this relieves the perimeter leak. If it does, then it sounds like excessive pressure that can be relieved by adding an inline shutoff/flow valve. As for the limited pressure on the handheld is it possible to exchange the rain with this one to see if the 2 problems follow the pipes? This will answer a lot of your questions. The handheld unit may 'suffer' from apparent low pressure caused by the design itself, else the pipe may be the culprit and may have a clog or mineral buildup at a sharp turn in the pipes.

hashman · Jun 8, 2005, 06:42 AM

Removed the rain shower head and put it on the pipe where the handheld was connected, no issues, no leaks. Put the handheld on the pipe where the rainshower was and it still had a problem with poor pressure. So I cleaned then soaked the handheld in CLR overnight, then reattached it to it's original location. I also purchased a low flow device for the rain shower head and that resolved the excessive pressure causing the leaks along it's perimeter.

Thanks for the help!

azuwan_h · Jan 4, 2011, 11:13 PM

How much pressure required for rain shower head

massplumber2008 · Jan 5, 2011, 10:18 AM

Hi Azuwan_h...

Most homes have pressures between 40-75 PSI, but that isn't really what determines how a rain head shower head will work. Instead, here, you'll find that it is more so the VOLUME of water available to the shower valve/shower head that determines how well the rain shower head will work.

With most of the rain shower heads they are making today they have engineered them to operate with 40-75 PSI and with 1/2" copper pipes and they work pretty good, too.

With that being said, some of the older rain shower heads and even a few of the cheaper rain shower heads they still make today still need to have a 3/4" pipe supplied to the shower valve to make for a really useful shower head... ;)

Just make sure your rain shower head is rated for 1/2" pipe and be sure to leave the water flow restrictor in place as it is part of the engineering that allows it to look like you have high volume water available... even if you don't!

Hope that helps...

Mark