Spouting off

If you know me, something you may not know about me is that I have a favorite shower head. It is a low-flow shower head that has a little push button thingee on the side that allows you to regulate the water flow. You can get a full whopping 2.5 gallons per minute for a luxurious high-pressure shower experience, or you can shut it down to a trickle. A handyman at my old apartment complex was kind enough to install it for me when he was in my apartment a few years ago doing a different plumbing repair.

The existing shower head in my new house was just not satisfactory, as far as I could see. Now that I'm gone, the management company is probably going to completely remodel my apartment, as they're doing with every apartment that goes vacant. So I figured, what's the harm, I'll swap shower heads with them. So I did.

The difficulty with this scheme made itself apparent on Sunday morning when I took a shower to clean up after moving. You know how you pull up the little thingee on the tub spout in order to send the water up to the shower head? When I did this, most of the water kept cascading out of the tub spout, and very little of it came out up top. I was sure I had tested this before and found it satisfactory -- but this was before I swapped shower heads.

What to do? Unlike most of my other recent plumbing adventures, this turned out to be quite simple. To make a long story as short as possible, I soaked the shower head in vinegar -- following the recommendation in a home maintenance book. After that, the amount of water coming out of the shower head was much better--but the tub spout diverter valve still leaked. So I went ahead and replaced the tub spout.

Now, in case you haven't replaced a tub spout lately, be advised that that there are at least three different types of tub spout, each requiring a different replacement. Fortunately, there is such a thing as a universal tub-spout replacement kit. The one I got over at Westlake Ace Hardware on 23rd even included the Teflon tape that you wrap around the pipe threads. Be advised that you also need something called water pump pliers. Back when I was a kid, we just called these Channellocks. Anyway, I forgot to get them Sunday and had to go back for them Monday. Hopefully my personal hygiene did not suffer too much as a consequence.

Once I'd replaced the tub spout, it all worked like a, like a...well, it worked exactly like a shower should. Yay!!! When I looked at the old shower head, it looked as if there was a build-up of corrosion that had kept the valve from closing properly. Next time I face this situation, I'll most likely soak the tub spout in vinegar, too, before I replace it.

It's good that I like fixing things, or I would have the wrong house.