My shower won't turn off!

[juliez]

Can anyone help? Had a shower (Aqualisa) this morning and when I turned off the flow dial, it had no affect - the water continued to flow. It only stopped when the water in the tank ran out and the pump went off.

Got a plumber in but all he was able to do was to close the shower off so that we could turn the pump back on in order to get water to the rest of the house.

Do you think I need a new shower, or is there a more simple answer?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[stoneyboy]

juliez,
Depends on which model it is and how old it is.
end

[Fixter]

I have the same problem. Not yet fixed. The shower is only 25 months old & has never given problems before. It just failed to turn off! I have an Aqualisa non-power shower that is mains pressure fed. To date, I isolated the hot & cold feeds, then removed the shower components including the thermostatic cartridge. I have no hardwater build up, but just in case put the thermostatic cartridge in a dilute solution of hot water & vinegar for several hours. The water supply 'tap component' appears to be a simple white nylon rapid screw stem device with 3 small rubber washers on the stem. Non of these are not worn. The tap screw device fits on 2 lugs. I have checked all works smoothly. I then replaced the components, turn on the cold feed only & retested. The shower still fails to turn off. Any ideas?

[Fixter]

Result! I have fixed the problem on my Aqualisa Thermostatic shower. It now turns the water on/off! How to fix: The tools you'll need are a 2 flat-head screwdrivers. One medium, one small. 2 cross-head screwdrivers, one medium and one smaller. Get a tin to temporarily store the removed parts!
1) Isolate both the hot and cold water supplies to your shower.
2) Lift off the Aqualisa decal on the middle of the tap assembly with the fine flathead screwdriver revealing a crosshead screw.
3) Using the smaller crosshead, remove the centre screw and gently prise off the on/off round head tap.
4) Next unscrew the revealed 4 cross-head screws.
5) Remove the centre black plastic top and white under washer.
6) Remove the hot/cold lever disc.
7) Now ease out the central black pillar which is linked to a polythene rising on/off screw pillar.
8) Next, gently lift out the orange tooth ring from the 4 white polythene clasp grips.
9) by removing the orange toothed ring, it reveals 4 larger crosshead screws which secures the thermostatic unit to the shower control housing. remove those screws, and ease out the thermostatic unit.
10) On the base of this thermostatic mechanism is a hollow through tube. Gently prise off the white course filter disc.

You're now ready to reseat the on/off rising pillar.

11) Check the integrity of the 3 rubber sealing rings for any damage. Replace if needed.
12) This bit needs concentration. :-) On the central polythene rising pillar are 2 longitudinal locating lugs. Re-attach the black plastic screw down moulding onto the rising pillar. Looking down the joined units ensure the black plastic moulding side lug is just to the right of the polythene rising pillar lugs. Next, return the now single unit into the shaft of the thermostatic unit, taking care in aligning the 2 polythene longitudinal lugs with the locating grooves inside the thermostatic unit. This is *critical*.
Once inserted, and whilst holding the on/off rising pillar in place, turn over the thermostatic unit and looking into the column, ensure the other end of the rising pillar, which can now be seen, covers the water inlet groove in the metal shaft. Holding the rising pillar firmly in place turn it as you would turning the shower on/off, viewing the pillar and inlet groove. In it's open position, the inlet groove is visible. In it's closed position the pillar twists further into in the tube covering the inlet groove. If the rising pillar doesn't move up and down the tube when twisted, the lugs are not located correctly. Repeat the rising pillar insertion procedure until you can see the pillar moving up and down the tube when twisted and the inlet groove being covered and revealed as the pillar is twisted.
13) Next re-insert the polythene filter disc into the end of the tube.
14) Reverse the disassembly procedure.

Hope this save you other DIY'ers a shed load of readies and many hours. The whole procedure, once I had discovered the criticality of the lug locations and pillar movement covering the inlet groove, took all of 15 minutes. I was impressed by the quality of the Aqualisa shower control unit. ( *tip* If your unit reveals any calcification, drop the whole thermostatic unit into some very hot water diluted vinegar solution and leave overnight. This will clean the unit of calcium carbonate.encrustation and improve it's mixer performance. )

Best of luck!

[Allan Hamp]

for anyone that's interested, i've just experienced the same thing mixer tap shower connected to a combi boiler.
tried to turn off but wouldn't. isolated the hot water by turning mixer down to cold so at least the boiler wasn't on but only able to turn off cold by turning off the mains feed to shower.

now here's my theory, this happened to coincide with our water pressure being significantly reduced by our water provider over the weekend and the reason i think this is more than coincidence is that when i came to have a shower on Monday morning hey presto when i turned everything back on the pressure was back to normal and the shower worked perfectly again.

is it just me or has anyone else experienced this

regards
Allan