First time shower head repair issue.

[deafanddiabetic]

I just moved into a new house and during the inspection he made note that one of the handles on the shower leaked. The shower head produced water, just not much. The shower upstairs works great as does every other faucet, toilet, etc.

Today I replaced the seats and valves with brand new ones after cutting the water. After replacing both new and to my knowledge correctly, there is no water at ALL coming out of the shower head. For reference, the actual shower head has been removed, there's no flow to the pipe itself.

After turning the water back on, I know there's water getting to both valves because if I unscrew them from the seat water starts coming out of them.

I tried fishing a wire down the shower head pipe, and can find no blockage, I was able to put about two feet of wire down it and rattle it around.

Why is there no water getting up to the shower head but seems stuck or stopped at the brand new valves and seats?

 

[Mr_David]

If you have an air compressor, try turning off the water, remove both hot and cold stem assemblies and blow back through the shower arm.
NO air compressor ,try water.
Turn off the hot system, remove the hot stem only.
Adapt a garden hose to the shower arm and try to back wash it with cold water.

 

[deafanddiabetic]

If you have an air compressor, try turning off the water, remove both hot and cold stem assemblies and blow back through the shower arm.
NO air compressor ,try water.
Turn off the hot system, remove the hot stem only.
Adapt a garden hose to the shower arm and try to back wash it with cold water.

Thank you for the reply, I do have a compressor that I could fit down the stairs to do this. Is this to try removing some unforeseen blockage or create some kind of vacuum or back pressure i.e. the refrigerant system in a car?

 

[frodo]

do you know the brand name of the valve?

is this a tub and shower or just shower?

 

[Mr_David]

Thank you for the reply, I do have a compressor that I could fit down the stairs to do this. Is this to try removing some unforeseen blockage or create some kind of vacuum or back pressure i.e. the refrigerant system in a car?

yes. Maybe a piece of washer from old stem assembly is stuck in the port going up into the riser to shower head.

If it is an old 2 handle Moen Valve you may have to just replace the valve entirely.

http://www.plumbingforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=13236&highlight=handle+Moen+shower+valve#post13236

Moen made a 2 handle tub & shwr valve several years ago that was defective in design.
The passage way that the water flow travels upward through to the shower head, when the tup spout diverter is used, gets blocked with mineral deposits. We had a special custom made flexible brush that we would push up through the tub filler wall fitting to remove some of the deposits. It worked about 25% of the time. We ended having to replace most of the valves. These were in homes less than 5 to 10 yrs old.

 

[deafanddiabetic]

do you know the brand name of the valve?

is this a tub and shower or just shower?

Unfortunately, I do not know the name and style of the system. I brought in the old valves and stems to the local plumbing store and they matched perfectly with ...Sayco? Maybe? The size was 9B-3H/3B. I did replace them entirely including new seats.

It is only a shower head with two knobs, one for hot, one for cold.

I was able to fish a yellow barbed cheapy unclogger tool down the shower head but it only reached about 12 inches down so about half way to the handles.

I will have time after work today to try blowing an air compressor through the shower head opening.

 

[deafanddiabetic]

So, I blew my compressor through the riser and could feel a little bit of air coming through the valve holes, not much. I decided to try putting CLR down the riser and it's already bubbling up brown corroded crap. I'm waiting to see if the liquid makes its way down to the valve holes now.

 

[deafanddiabetic]

I got water back through, which coupled with the no longer leaking handle feels like a small victory. But there's still really low pressure.

At this point I may just deal with it after several hours work and 60$ in supplies. It works! Just not great, hah.