Shower Keeps Dripping After It Is Off

First: Drip, or a Few Drops That Stop?

Turn the shower off and watch the showerhead for a minute. A few drops, then nothing, is normal. Water sits in the shower arm and the head after the valve closes, and it needs a moment to drain out. That is not a repair.

A drip that keeps going, one drop after another, hour after hour, is different. The valve behind the wall is not closing all the way. Water is slipping past it, and it will keep slipping until the worn part is replaced.

One more test helps. Look at the tub spout too. If water drips from the spout while the shower is off, that is the same story: the valve is leaking by. If the spout is dry and only the showerhead drips, the valve is still the likely cause, because the water takes the path out the top.

What Is Going On Inside the Wall

A shower valve is a small part with one job: stop water completely when you turn the handle to off. It does that with soft rubber or plastic pieces pressing against a smooth seat. Over time those pieces wear, harden, or get scratched. Then they stop sealing, and water leaks past.

What wears out depends on which kind of shower you have.

• One handle that moves for both hot and cold. Inside is a cartridge. It is a plastic or brass cylinder with rubber seals and small openings. When the seals wear or minerals scratch the inside, the cartridge no longer shuts off tight. Replacing the cartridge is the usual fix.
• Two handles, one for hot and one for cold. Each handle has its own stem with a rubber washer on the end. The washer presses on a metal ring called a valve seat. A worn washer, or a seat that has pitted or grown rough, lets water through. Either one can be the problem, and sometimes it is both.
• A pressure-balance or thermostatic valve. These have a cartridge or a stem plus a set of seals. They are built to hold your water temperature steady. They leak for the same reason: worn seals or a rough seat.

If you have two handles, the water temperature at the drip tells you something. A warm drip points to the hot side. A cold drip points to the cold side. That helps, but it does not replace opening the valve and looking.

What to Do Today

There is not much to do yourself, and that is fine. Here is what helps.

• Do not crank the handle harder to the off position. It feels like the right move. It is not. Forcing a worn valve shut presses the rubber into the seat and wears both faster.
• Put a towel or a bucket under a spout drip if it bothers you. A slow drip is not an emergency.
• Find your shut-off. Many showers have no shut-off valve of their own. If you have to stop the water in a hurry, you will use the main. Read how to shut off your water main now, while nothing is wrong.
• Check the wall around the handle and the ceiling below. If the wall plate is wet, or you see a stain in the room under the bathroom, the leak is not only at the showerhead. That is a call today.

A drip that only falls into the tub can wait a few days. A wet wall or a stained ceiling cannot.

What Waiting Costs You

A dripping shower looks small. It is not free. The water runs all day and all night, and if the drip is on the hot side, you are paying to heat water that goes straight down the drain.

If your home is on a septic system, that water goes into the tank and drain field too. A steady drip adds a little water around the clock, which is one more thing a septic system does not need.

There is also a repair cost to waiting. Water with grit in it wears the seat while it leaks past. A cartridge swap on a lightly worn valve is a simple job. A seat that has been cut up by months of drip can mean more work.

Why It Shows Up Often in Mountain Homes

Many homes around Ellijay and North Georgia run on well water. Well water can carry minerals and fine sediment. Both are hard on the small rubber and plastic parts inside a shower valve. Sediment scratches the seat. Minerals build up on the cartridge and keep it from closing. If that sounds like your water, hard water and your plumbing explains what it does to fixtures.

Access is the other thing. In some houses the back of the shower valve is reachable from a closet, a basement ceiling, or a crawlspace. In others, there is no access at all and the work happens from the shower side by taking off the wall plate. Ryan checks which one you have when he looks at it, and he tells you the plan before he starts.

Fix It Yourself, or Call?

Swapping a cartridge is something plenty of handy people do. It goes wrong in a few common ways, and when it does, a small drip turns into a bigger job.

A reasonable DIY job

• You can name the brand and model of the valve, so the cartridge matches
• You can shut off the water to the whole house, and it fully stops
• The handle comes off easily and the cartridge is not stuck

Call a plumber

• You do not know the brand, or the valve has no markings you can read
• You already put in a new cartridge and it still drips, which usually points at the seat
• The cartridge will not come out, or the handle stem is stripped
• You see water on the wall, a stain on the ceiling below, or a soft spot in the floor
• You have two handles and the drip comes back after a new washer

Shower valve work is something Ryan does. The shower repair page covers what he handles. If the valve is old, or parts are no longer made for it, shower valve replacement explains when swapping the whole valve is the better call. If water sits in the tub for another reason, see shower drain clogged.

"Ryan tells you what he is going to do, why he needs to do it and what it will cost. Then he shows up when he says he will, does the work correctly, neatly and quickly and bills with no surprises. I wish there were more people like Ryan in the world."

Common Questions About a Dripping Shower