Child Item

How to fix leaking shower head at base of unit?

Hi Guys,

I recently replaced a 21 year old shower head with a new one purchased at Bunnings. Due to the plumbing extending out of the wall further than the new head was designed for the gentlemen at Bunnings said to use the old backing plate.

I have noticed a small leak at the base of the backing plate. Just wondering if this means it is leaking internally and should it be something I worry about? I have attached some images which hopefully will show the small drip/leak.

Thank you so much for your help 🙂

Find more posts tagged with

Repairing

Plumbing

Accepted answers

All comments

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @TraceyO. It's fantastic to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about a leaking shower.

It's an issue that should be addressed. Can you remember approximately how many revolutions the fitting was able to achieve onto the threaded wall fitting? Did you use thread tape on the copper fitting before installing the shower hose fitting onto it?

If you didn't use thread tape, or even if you did, I'd remove the fitting and try re-installing it with thread tape or slightly more of it. There's a chance that if you were only able to rotate the fitting a couple of times when installing that, the cover plate has restricted you from screwing on the sitting fully. If this is the case, then you might want to swap the cover plate out for one that is slightly more slimline.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

TraceyO

Hi Mitchell,

thank you so much for replying. Yes I did use a fair bit of thread tape so I don’t think that is the issue but I can remove it and place more on.

it was quite a few revolutions for the fitting. Probably the black head threaded onto the copper pipe all the way not the black head. The reason I used the cover plate was because the copper pipe sits so far out of the wall if I don’t use the cover plate there is exposed piping out the wall. The flimsy black “o’ ring that came with the black fitting kept slipping out and I wonder if it’s that? Mind you the O ring is near the black section and it seems to be leaking from the silver cover plate maybe. I will try more tape and checking the O ring and see how I go. 🙂

**** EDIT; Yay! I did what you said and added more tape and tightened the black unit a few more revolutions and the leaking seems to have stopped. Thank you very much!

MitchellMc

Love your work @TraceyO; great Sunday win!

Mitchell

Child Item