You turn the handle off, grab a towel, and the shower keeps going. Not much. A drop, then a long gap, then another one hitting the tub.
Ten minutes later you’re dressed and it’s still at it. I get this call in Northfield more than you’d think, and most folks figure the showerhead’s gone bad. Usually it hasn’t. The part that’s failing is behind the wall.
First, Ruling Out Normal Drainage
Every shower holds a little water in the arm and showerhead after you shut it off, and it’ll drip out for a few minutes. A big rain head like hers can go fifteen. That part’s normal.
one customer said hers was still dripping at forty minutes. That’s not leftover water. That’s the valve letting fresh water through to the showerhead while the handle’s off.
On a tub-shower combo, a leaky valve sometimes shows up at the spout instead, so check there too. And if yours quits inside ten minutes, you can probably stop reading here. Go have your coffee.
What Was Behind the Handle
Main off, handle and trim off. Behind them sat a Moen Posi-Temp valve, and the cartridge inside looked like it had been there since the last remodel.
The cartridge is the part that actually opens and closes the water. Turn the handle, it moves. Its seals wear a little every time, and once they flatten out, water creeps by with the handle off.
Hers were flat. Crusty too, but I’ll get to that.
Swapping the showerhead never had a chance. The water was getting through before it ever reached the fixture.
Delta and Pfister valves fail the same way. They just take different cartridges, which is why grabbing “a shower cartridge” at the hardware store tends to go badly.
Why Hers Wore Out Early
That crust was scale. Northfield has hard water, like most of Minnesota, and the minerals that leave white rings on a showerhead also settle inside the cartridge, right on the seals. It only takes a thin layer to keep one from closing all the way.
She had a softener in the basement. Nobody’d put salt in it since sometime last spring. Her water heater was probably paying for that too, but that’s a different article.
I see that a lot. Softeners get installed and then forgotten. If you’ve got one, lift the lid on the brine tank now and then. If you don’t, figure on replacing cartridges sooner than the box suggests.
The Fix, and Where DIY Gets Risky
Her old cartridge didn’t want to come out. It took a puller and some patience, and the whole visit ran a little over an hour.
New cartridge in, water back on. I shut the handle and watched the showerhead for ten minutes. Dry.
That stuck cartridge is where people get into trouble on their own. Crank on a seized stem hard enough and you crack the valve body, and a $40 part turns into an open wall. Then the whole valve has to be replaced, and Minnesota code requires a pressure-balancing or thermostatic one meeting ASSE 1016.
If that shower’s on an exterior wall, now picture doing all that in a Northfield January. Nobody wants that wall open long.
Call Before It Gets Worse
If yours has been at it for a few weeks, call us at SouthSota Benjamin Franklin Plumbing before that cartridge gives out completely. They don’t heal. Sooner or later one stops shutting off at all, and a simple shower repair turns into a new valve and an open wall.
Questions I Get Asked
Is it normal for it to drip a little after
For a few minutes, yeah, longer with a big rain head. That’s water draining out of the arm and showerhead. Past half an hour, the valve isn’t sealing. Time it before you call anybody.
Will a new showerhead fix it or no
Almost never. The leak’s in the valve, so a new head just gives the water a nicer way out. Replace the head if it’s cracked or clogged, but don’t count on it to stop a drip that starts behind the tile.
How much water am I actually wasting
Depends on the drip. A slow one barely moves the bill. A steady one runs around the clock, though, and a cartridge that leaks a little this month usually leaks more next month. That’s the real cost.
Would a water softener have prevented this
It probably would’ve helped. Northfield’s water is hard enough to scale up cartridges over time, and a softener that’s kept in salt slows that way down. It won’t save a cartridge that’s already worn, though.
Can I change the cartridge myself
Some people do fine, as long as they know the valve brand and the main shutoff actually holds. The trouble is a cartridge that won’t budge. If it fights you, stop. A cracked valve body costs a lot more than a service call.
Oh, and she kept the rain head. Figured she’d paid for it.
