Low shower flow -Delta 1400

[Brandon T]

I would appreciate any ideas from the forum.

We recently purchased an older home and the house has excellent water pressure, however the shower is a trickle. It has a Delta 1400 fixture. I replaced the cartridge, but that did not help. The original cartridge and the valve body both looked very clean. When I opened the main (partially) without the cartridge in place, the water flow was very high.

Inspecting the pressure balance valve body, it looks like a diverter(?) is occluding the flow. There is no diverter assembly below the valve body. What do I do? Does anyone have any ideas? I feel like it shouldn't be there or that there should be access to a lever.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Brandon

 

[Twowaxhack]

If it’s a shower only, have you taken the shower head off and checked flow ?

If so, use an air compressor connected to the shower arm and then with the cartridge removed blow air backwards through the valve to check for clear passage.

If that checks out, make sure you have both hot and cold pressure at the valve. If you have low pressure on the hot then the cartridge will limit the cold also and the result will be low flow from the shower head. The opposite is also true, if the cold supply is limited then the cartridge will limit the hot.

Of course make sure the cartridge is clean at it inlets.

 

[Brandon T]

If it’s a shower only, have you taken the shower head off and checked flow ?

If so, use an air compressor connected to the shower arm and then with the cartridge removed blow air backwards through the valve to check for clear passage.

If that checks out, make sure you have both hot and cold pressure at the valve. If you have low pressure on the hot then the cartridge will limit the cold also and the result will be low flow from the shower head. The opposite is also true, if the cold supply is limited then the cartridge will limit the hot.

Of course make sure the cartridge is clean at it inlets.

Thank you @Twowaxhack ! I haven't gotten hold of a compressor yet, but I can confirm that I'm not getting hot water. Next step is to figure out why. Thank you again for your help.

 

[Twowaxhack]

If you’re not getting hot water then that’s the problem. The hot and cold pressure is dependent on each other. “ pressure balanced cartridge “

I wouldn’t worry with the air compressor, fix the low flow on the hot.