About a week ago I had to remove our old, electric water heater and replace the thing. It sits in a tiny mechanical room which just houses the water heater. Years ago I had re-plumbed the house and I'm an amateur but I have sweat a lot of pipes. Well, behind this water heater and against the wall I had made a junction that was making a drip about every 8 minutes - I had missed the problem for years. The drywall was rotten - just a mess. I had more trouble than I have ever had fixing this thing and resorted to using some white bread (well, the white part of a hot dog bun). I had to use more bread than I had ever used. Everything works fine, now, except the shower head. I checked the diverter and it's in one piece and the little rubber seal is in place. I don't know the brand of this thing - we bought it at Home Depot about seven or eight years ago. A tiny amount of water comes out of the shower head....now and then. I cannot believe that there is bread in the line. feeding the shower. It would have gotten moist and come out, by now. I don't really understand the design of the cartridge (which I have not pulled) but can the cartridge be plugged in such a way that just the shower head gets no water? Can a cartridge be replaced if the thing is somehow broken? Water is blasting out of the spigot to the tub - just almost zero shower....a couple of dribbles now and then.



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? Have you removed the shower head and checked the flow through the shower arm to determine if the clog is in the head itself ?

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

You said a diverter from The Home Depot. Is that a diverter that attaches to the end of a shower arm to allow you go switch between overhead shower and a auxillary hand shower off that diverter?

Or is this an integrated diverter to switch from tub spout to shower?

Or is it a pull knob on your tub spout?

Your tub spout is running fine. So remove the shower head and see if you get good flow out of that.

Is water coming out of the tub spout even when you switch to shower and it just drip slowly?

Yep. I immediately took off the shower head. There's basically no water coming from the pipe itself.



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I meant the thing you pull up that stop the water going into the tub - there's a washer that can fall out, according to a video I watched. That thing is fine. I need to pull out the cartridge, I guess. And when I pull up on that thing to divert the water to the shower the water still kinda spurts out of the spigot to the tub - it seems that that the flow is somewhat interrupted, but, water still comes out the spigot - a couple of dribbles out of the shower head.



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If you are using the tub spout diverter the knob you pull up there is no cartridge. That thing is just a flat piece of gate. Most likely you have a twin el behind the wall. Try to hook up a garden hose with a 1/2" adapter to pressure the shower arm in reverse to see if anything get flushed back through the spout.

I think we had multiple problems.....crap in the lines, and, there was something wrong with the diverter "doo-dad" which you pull up to divert water to the shower head. Last night my wife said that when she cupped her hands over the bathtub tub spout a decent stream of water seemed to be coming out of the pipe for the shower - I'd removed the shower head. That was NOT happening a day or so ago because, of course, I'd tried the same thing. I had pulled out the diverter part, in the spout, that holds a washer and it appeared fine. But, it clearly was not working. I have no idea what was wrong with that diverter mechanism. But since water was now coming out of the shower pipe when you stopped the water with your hands I figured it had to be something in this diverter thing. I went to Home Depot, bought the cheapest spout/diverter they had in stock. It now works fine. There must have been junk in the lines that worked it's way out, plus, the diverter thing was screwed up...in one way or another (it' a mystery to me). Thanks for the various suggestions. I don't think I'll ever resort to using bread, again....and I had used it for years with no problems. Guess I just used too much. Plus, black goo came out of our water heater (it had been smelling for about a week) and I think some sort of rubber part had melted in the thing. Plus was have a softener but we have really hard water... Thanks for the help - for whatever reason, the stupid thing is now working famously.

Bernabeu is a wizard with this stuff, he was likely able to connect remotely to the shower valve and fix it from his desktop. Tech support on this site is second to none.

..... one must use the force and THINK the water through the piping .....

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638