We recently redid out master bathroom and had a ceiling rainfall shower head installed. The circular shower head is quite flat (best I can tell) and has about about 180 holes through which the water is supposed to flow. When off, the head does not leak. The problem is that, when it is on, water flows out nicely, but only seemingly through about half of the holes (about the same holes each time, it seems, mostly toward one side, or half, though there are a couple of holes clearly working well on the "bad" side). On the "bad" side of the circular flat shower head, large water drops form, and drop continuously while the shower is on. Any thoughts how I might fix this? Help is appreciated!!!

-Mike

did it ever work with all the holes shooting water or did this just happen?

If there's a flow restrictor in the head that might be problem. It's a volume problem either way.

packy, good question. I don't know that it was ever not this way. The shower head is only 12 months old; for some reason I did not notice it until about 7-8 months ago.

North Carolina Plumber, interesting that you're saying it's a flow restrictor problem. I really don't know if there is a flow restrictor in there or not. I can inquire / figure it out.

One interesting additional clue is that the water beading up and dripping from the "bad" area of the shower head takes a lot longer to heat up vs the water spraying out from the good area of the head. It seemed to me that maybe the head wasn't level (flat) and so water over the bad area of the head was just building up an not draining properly, which might be exacerbated by too little water flow. But strangely there are clearly a couple of really good shower holes in the bad area of the shower head, surrounded by many bad holes not showering. Strange.

you need to remove the shower head and look into the inlet for a flow restrictor. if you remove it you will be in violation of every law ever written and you may be flogged in public.
there also may be a filter screen in the inlet which just need to be cleaned. don't eliminate that as it keeps debris out of the 180 holes.

When installed, if a lot of pipe dope was used instead of tef tape, it could be clogged. Have seen this happen. Just a thought.

There is a reason they send you a "nozzle" wrench with the head. IF some spray and others do not, they must be obstructed.

Could be that either you have too many holes or the 1/2" shower riser does not meet the volume needed for all of those holes

GOOD POINT!!

When one nozzle sprays and one next to it does NOT, it is usually NOT a volume problem. In fact, if it were a volume problem they would ALL basically drip equally.



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