Squealing Shower with New Shower Head

[KptNYC]

Hi everyone,

I live in an apartment building and our maintenance team just replaced our shower head while doing some other work in the bathroom. Unfortunately, our shower now makes an awful high pitched squealing noise every time we use it. Maintenance has said this is the only brand of showerhead they have and they don't know why it's squealing. We don't have access to change the water pressure and it wasn't doing this with our old showerhead. They've offered to install a different showerhead if we buy one, but I don't know how to guarantee that a different style won't have the same problem. Any suggestions for how to hack this problem or what kind of new showerhead to buy?

(PS. I know that technically this is the building's problem to fix, but it may not be worth our time to fight them on it or to arrange to be home multiple times so they can try different fixes.)

 

[Reach4]

Changing a showerhead could be about as hard as changing an old light bulb-- depending on how tight they screwed it on.

I would try two tests:

1. hold your hand over the holes. That will reduce the flow. How does that affect the noise?
2. Turn off the water, and remove the showerhead. Turn on the shower. That will increase the flow a lot.

If the squeal stays under those conditions, changing the shower head won't help.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Terry]

With a squealing shower head, I sometimes drill the flow restricter to change the flow rate. Sometimes water passing through a very small opening will set up a high pitched vibration. I call it "tuning" the shower head. I had one shower head that the whistle coming from it was ear piercing. Enlarging the hole in the flow restrictor fixed it nicely.

Or pick up a new shower head and thread it on. You only need a crescent wrench and some tape for the installation.

 

[Jadnashua]

Are you sure that it's the showerhead and not the tub spout's diverter? That assumes, of course, that it's a tub/shower. The solution to that is a new tub spout with a fresh diverter. On most, that part is not a repair part, so you need to replace the whole spout.

 

[KptNYC]

Thanks, everyone. I'm pretty sure it's the showerhead because it only started after they changed the showerhead. Our old one didn't have this problem. I'll start try Reach4's suggestions to double check, though. For the record, the showerhead they installed looks like this:

 

[Jadnashua]

I've had more than one tub spout/diverter that made noises when running the shower, but not seen a showerhead itself do it. Doesn't mean it can't be, but I still lean more towards the tub spout/diverter. Can you slightly push or pull on the diverter while running the shower and see if it changes the sound? When running the shower, how much, if any, water is leaking out of the spout? A new spout with a quality diverter doesn't leak anything out of the spout. The restriction in the new showerhead may mean more pressure in the tub spout, and the diverter is vibrating like a reed on a woodwind if it's leaking any at all. One with a good seal should stop that. Drilling out or removing any restrictor in the showerhead would lower the pressure and also exceed federal requirements of water use (max 2.5gpm). That also means you'll potentially run out of hot water, but that may not be an issue in a large complex as it would in an individual hot water supply (do you have your own water heater, or is it communal?).

 

[KptNYC]

I've had more than one tub spout/diverter that made noises when running the shower, but not seen a showerhead itself do it. Doesn't mean it can't be, but I still lean more towards the tub spout/diverter. Can you slightly push or pull on the diverter while running the shower and see if it changes the sound? When running the shower, how much, if any, water is leaking out of the spout? A new spout with a quality diverter doesn't leak anything out of the spout. The restriction in the new showerhead may mean more pressure in the tub spout, and the diverter is vibrating like a reed on a woodwind if it's leaking any at all. One with a good seal should stop that. Drilling out or removing any restrictor in the showerhead would lower the pressure and also exceed federal requirements of water use (max 2.5gpm). That also means you'll potentially run out of hot water, but that may not be an issue in a large complex as it would in an individual hot water supply (do you have your own water heater, or is it communal?).

The tub spout is not leaking at all.