I have a client with two showers with the single handle anti-scald Kohler shower valve. When the valve is turned on to all hot or all cold no problems, but when put in between there is an extreme pipe hammering. I went into the attic today and the pipes are held down and do not move, but the vibration can be felt yet no movement observed. Water hammer arresters were put on at the water heater, which is in the garage on the lower level. I opened the valve to observe how it was installed and everything is solid and appears to be in the correct attitude. My question is could the water hammer be caused by something wrong in each of the valve cartridges. The showers are on opposite sides of the house and both have water hammer. This was not happening until two people took showers at the same time. Any ideas out there?
Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)
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My first suspicion is that there's some sort of flow restriction on one side. Are the valves on the water heater all the way open? Any sort of recirculating arrangement?
Also, is there a third single-handle control somewhere, in particular another tub/shower? With pressure differential a slightly defective valve could cause the hammer even when the valve isn't on. See if there's a faucet you can open somewhere in the house that stops the hammer.
Yep, the hot water heater is open all the way, a 90 dg. ball valve shutoff, so easy to check. We did open the single handle kitchen faucet as per your good suggestion and there was no water hammer in the shower when it was turned on. Would the pressure differential then be in the kitchen faucet or would the problem be in each of the shower valves? I think you may have something here, mahalo.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)Edited 1/26/2008 9:56 pm by Hoohuli
Edited 1/26/2008 9:59 pm by Hoohuli
Where does the sound seem to come from when the hammer occurs? Is is possibly coming from the kitchen faucet, or is it definitely coming from the shower valve?
In any event, one of the valves is probably malfunctioning, and it can do this even when not turned on. Pressure balancing valves are the first to suspect, though, so probably you need to get a kit to redo one shower valve, and if that doesn't fix it, redo the other. (Probably not worth it to try to remove the kit or reuse the old one if the first shot isn't a hit.) It could end up being the kitchen faucet, though.
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
I'll go over in the morning and stand at the kitchen faucet while he turns on each shower. The pipes come from the water heater up, pass by the kitchen faucet, then into the attic where they tee then onto the showers on each side of the house. We are going to install a recirc pump and put a tee on the sink in the master to get hot water there faster, so wanted to solve this problem first. Will keep you posted tomorrow.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
Check the water pressure in the house. Excessive pressure can do strange things to valves. Gauges that screw onto hose bib are common.
Today, we cleaned the shower heads and ran each without the head. Nice flow of water, but still the loud vibration. Tried turning off the single handle faucet in the kitchen with the shutoffs, so that faucet was completely out of the picture, still the noise. Found that when we turn on any other faucet in the house there is no noise, so I am inclined to agree that the problem is in the cartridges. Hopefully one of the two plumbing supply houses here will have them in stock. We are going to just change out both at once.
Our incoming pressure here is about 140 psi. I go check the pressure tomorrow and make sure that it is around 60 which is what we run most things here with. The flow in the sinks is completely normal, so I don't think we have a pressure problem, but we will check it out anyway.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
It's possible that the vibration comes from the pressure regulator. Have you tried opening up other faucets (without the shower valves being on) until you match the flow of a shower?
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
Nope, but I'll give it a go in the morning. We are open to any suggestions at this point.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
Well, we solved the noise problem, but I don't know why? He wanted a recirc pump put in to put "instant" hot H20 to the mstr. bath. So, we put the pump on down at the H20 htr, and the cross piece up under the sink in the mstr. bath. While the H20 was off we pulled the guest bath valve cartridge, took a look, didn't see anything out of place, damaged, clogged, blocked, or anything else. Put it back, turned on the water, pump worked fine, and no noise in either shower when the valves are turned on to where they made the noise before. No noise with or without the pump functioning. Something changed but I don't know what????? All's well that ends well, even if we don't know why or how.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
This is not what is described as water hammer. Water hammer is the single bang, possibly followed by a couple of rattles when realatively fast moving water is sudden shut off. You often have this with washing machines.
Hammer arrestors work for that, but need to be close to the particular water valve to be effective. And they need to be of the sealed design. The stubbed T's will soon fill up with water and lose their effectivness.
I have never heard of a term from what you have. It is caused by something loose in the water flow that can move or cause turbulent flow. The classic cause of this is a two handle faucets with a loose screw on the washer.
But it can also be caused by other things and even with loose debre in the lines.
I would start with the shower heads. Remove them, run some water to flush them and look for any trash in the head.
If that does not work then replace the cartridges. And when you have the old out run the water for a couple of seconds to flush the lines.
Hammer arrestors don't solve this, but sometimes they detune the condtions conditions at which it happens so that it no longer a problem. But again it needs to be close to the valve.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Mahalo Bill and Sasquatc5, we'll pull the shower heads this morning. The cartridges are next on the list. It could very well be the silica pebble build up we have over here. No calcium or lime as the land is too young, but lots of the volcanic silica in the water. The plumber put the arresters on at the h20 htr, because the client does not want his overlap siding opened up and the tile prevents getting to it from the shower side. The house is only 5 years old. I'll post later as to what is found from these options.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
Here's another pic. I'm just messing around with Picasa. I was never able to reduce the file size of my photos very much before.
Now those are nice and neat! Over here I have had to cross the flex tubes under sinks twice in the last month. When the original guy brought the pipe out of the slab he did not make a cross-over for back to back bath hookups. The hot is correct in one bath and reversed in the other. There is some real shoddy work done over here!Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
My parents' house has back-to-back tubs with both of them bass-ackwards. Apparently the plumber flipped the wrong cartridge.
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
I have had luck doing them this way, although there are more expensive solutions. This is a Delta valve, but I originally started doing this with Kohler.