shower hose from mixer tap will only run very hot or cold

[cfreeves]

Hi,

I know nothing about plumbing but thought I would see if I could work out the problem for myself before calling out an expensive plumber.

We bought our house recently and have never been able to use the shower which is attached to the mixer tap on the bath. The mixer tap for the bath workers fine, the hot and cold mix well and are responsive to the hot and cold tap being turned. Pressure is ok but not amazing for both hot and cold. The fitting then has a shower hose coming from it and the water from this will only run VERY hot or VERY cold and is virtually impossible to get it to any kind of temperature you can stand under. This is under normal circumstances when no other water is being run in the house.

Have been reading around this a bit and am thinking it is unusual for the tap to be working fine but not the shower. Does this mean it is something which might be as easy to fix as replacing the shower hose (or a valve in it)?

As you can tell I am a novice, but I am hoping there is a simple (and cheap solution.

Thanks in advance.

 

[stardanny]

What system do you have? Hot water cylinder? Combi? Sound like problem with balance pressure.

Is the bath mixer tap a thermostatic type?

Try clean up shower head of limescale, maybe replace hose, see if that make a different.

Daniel.

 

[Justin Passing]

+1
most likely a pressure imbalance.

but if it's a thermostatic mixer, is the hot on the left? If not, it will fail to work properly and give you exactly what you're getting. Though the odd 'stat mixer is reversible.