Fixing a Dripping Shower Head and Hose

Why Showers Start to Drip

A dripping shower head is one of those small irritations that quietly gets worse. At first it is a few drops after you switch off, then a steady trickle that keeps you awake at night and leaves a chalky stain on the tray. In our experience, the cause is almost always one of two things: limescale that has built up inside the head, or a rubber washer that has finally given up.

Here in the UK, most of us are washing under hard water. That water carries dissolved calcium and magnesium, and every time it dries on a surface it leaves a little mineral deposit behind. Over months and years those deposits gather around the spray plate, the tiny holes and the internal seals. The silicone or rubber components also harden with heat and age, so they stop sealing properly against the water pressure behind them. Once a seal is compromised, water finds the path of least resistance and drips out of the head or the joint where the hose meets the handset.

The good news is that most of these faults are straightforward to sort out yourself with basic tools and an hour of your time.

Before You Pick Up a Spanner

Always isolate the water before you start. If you have a combi boiler or a mains-fed system, there is usually an isolation valve on the shower pipework, often a small screwdriver slot on a chrome fitting. Turn it a quarter turn and open the shower to confirm the flow has stopped. If you cannot find one, close the mains stopcock or turn off the cold feed to the cylinder in the airing cupboard. For a gravity-fed system, shutting the gate valve on the cold storage tank in the loft is the safest option.

Have these to hand before you begin:

• An adjustable spanner or a pair of water pump pliers
• A flat-head screwdriver for isolation valves and grub screws
• A small bowl or towel to catch residual water
• White vinegar or a proprietary descaler
• A pack of assorted rubber and fibre washers
• PTFE tape for threaded joints

Put the plug in the shower tray. Small washers and screws have a habit of disappearing down the waste, and you will not find them again.

Cleaning the Shower Head

Unscrew the head from the hose by hand where possible. If it has seized, wrap a cloth around the chrome and use the spanner gently — chrome scratches easily and a chewed-up nut is a miserable thing to deal with.

Fill a bowl with equal parts white vinegar and warm water, or use a descaler made for kettles and shower heads. Submerge the head and leave it for at least an hour, ideally overnight. Vinegar is mildly acidic and dissolves the limescale without attacking the plastic or chrome. For stubborn blockages, work a cocktail stick through the individual nozzles after soaking, then rinse thoroughly under a running tap.

If your head has a rubber face, you can often clear it with a thumb and a bit of pressure. If the spray plate is badly corroded or the plastic has cracked, a replacement head costs very little and takes seconds to fit. There is no sense in nursing along a part that is past saving.

Replacing Worn Washers and Seals

Look inside the threaded end of the head and at the top of the hose. You should find a small rubber or fibre washer sitting in a recess. If it is flat, cracked, blackened or missing altogether, that is your leak.

Take the old washer to a plumber's merchant or a decent hardware shop and match it exactly — internal diameter, external diameter and thickness all matter. Fibre washers are the better choice where the joint gets hot, as they cope with temperature changes without going brittle. Slide the new washer into place, hand-tighten the head onto the hose, then nip it up a quarter turn with the spanner. Do not overtighten. Too much force distorts the washer and creates the very leak you are trying to cure.

While you are in there, check the O-ring or seal inside the handset where the hose collar sits. A smear of silicone grease on a new seal helps it seat and keeps it supple.

Checking the Hose Connection

The hose itself is a common culprit. An inner tube can split long before the outer braid shows any sign of damage, so a hose can look perfectly fine and still weep. Run your hand along it while the shower is on, looking for damp patches or a fine spray.

Check both ends. The connection at the mixer or valve body uses a conical washer, and the one at the head uses a flat or conical seal depending on the make. Replace whichever is worn. If the metal collar is cross-threaded, you will feel it resist as you tighten — stop, unscrew it fully and start again by hand.

If the drip continues at the wall or the valve rather than the head, the fault is further back and likely involves the cartridge or the mixer body itself.

When to Call in a Plumber

Most dripping heads and hoses are a DIY job, and you will have saved yourself a callout fee. But there are times when it pays to bring in someone who does this every day. If the leak is from inside the shower valve, if the flow is weak on both hot and cold, if the shower is part of a sealed system and the pressure gauge is misbehaving, or if you simply cannot shift a seized fitting without risking damage to the tiling, get a professional in.

A family-run plumbing and heating firm will usually be happy to talk you through the job over the phone first, and will tell you honestly whether it is worth tackling yourself. Left alone, a small drip wastes water, stains your tray and can work its way into the wall behind the tiles. Fixing it early is always the cheaper option.