Moen single handle shower is slow to fully start and slow to stop

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Our shower is probably 10 years old? shower has a single handle Moen valve. All of the sudden it's acting weird with water flow. We have one of those medium sized rain shower heads. Anyway, you start the shower and about a 2/3 of the holes fill and start spraying like they should, while the last 1/3 of the holes just kind of dribble water. After about 5-10 seconds all holes are spraying water like they should. Turning off the shower, it used to pretty much immediately stop. Now it takes like 30 seconds for water to work it's way through the holes and finally stop.

I took the shower head off, separated it in two as it is held together with one bolt through the middle. Then I shot each hole with compressed air, and feel pretty good that they are not clogged or partially clogged. So, is the valve cartridge mucked up? Should I pull that out and give it good cleaning of some sort?
 

Terry

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A picture 800 pixels or less would help us.
If the valve rotated left to turn on the water, you have a Posi-Temp valve. 1222 cartridge
If you pull the handle out for volumne, and left/right for temperature, with the old Moen or the Moentrol with the 1225 or 1200 cartridge
 
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A picture 800 pixels or less would help us.
If the valve rotated left to turn on the water, you have a Posi-Temp valve. 1222 cartridge
If you pull the handle out for volumne, and left/right for temperature, with the old Moen or the Moentrol with the 1225 or 1200 cartridge

No pullout, says MOEN on the bottom of the cover plate. I called Moen and they are sending me a cartridge. I replaced it once a few years ago when it was getting kind of sticky. Easy to replace so hoping this fixes the issue.

1222B is the cartridge part number.
 
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Well shoot, replaced with 1222 cartridge and now the handle turns quite nicely and smoothly. But, still get that annoying leaking from showerhead. So, I replaced showerhead with old one we had from a remodeling job, and the water stops as it should. So, now I have the problematic showerhead soaking in a pie tin(ceramic) with some CLR. I will then poke each hole to make sure crud is out. I guess blasting with compressed air didn't do much as it turns out.
 
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I always use CLR for many things, so I have lots of recycled CLR to try things like this. It may or may not work, because the nozzles might have hardened up and to the point they are cracking. You'll know when you put the showerhead back on. If it pisses everywhere, that means those little rubble nozzles have run their life.

But if you have to go out and buy CLR, save the $10 and buy a new showerhead for $40. There's a reason why Moen showerheads are all made with chrome painted plastic, so you can swap them fast without thinking about your wallet.
 
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I am back revisiting this post. I replaced Posi-Temp 1222 cartridge and we still have issues. Hours after anybody has used that shower there will be a sudden release of water from the showerhead. Why is this happening? Sitting there at 3 in the morning and hear running water. How do I daignose what the issue is?
 

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Sounds like a shower head issue.

For instance, when using a tub shower with diverter on the tub spout, it will take 35 minutes for the water to quit dripping from the tub spout after taking a shower.
Water can be like that. Even rivers flowing from mountain glaciers. The water rushes down the mountain, collecting sand and pollen on it's way to the ocean. The water takes it's sweet time by glancing up at trees and birds flying over head.
 
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It almost sounds like a buildup of water that never got through showerhead after shutting off water, but why does it wait hours to suddenly go ahead and exit the plumbing? And it's a fair amount a cup or so.
 

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It could be an air lock. Enough water subsides to allow air to come in. Sort of like holding your thumb on top of a straw. The thumb gets lifted and the water drains.
 
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It could be an air lock. Enough water subsides to allow air to come in. Sort of like holding your thumb on top of a straw. The thumb gets lifted and the water drains.
That's what it's acting like! Can I test this by taking off shower head and shoving some small diameter tubing through pipe after taking shower to see if that breaks the air lock and releases all water or some similar method?
 
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