When you look down, you see that not all of the water from your pipes is making it to your shower head. In fact, a good amount of it is leaking out of your bathtub spout. And that water is just going down the drain instead of hitting your body.
Even if your tub spout just drips or dribbles a little, you probably don’t want to waste this water. It’s not like you’re shower is leaking outside the tub – it’s just more of an annoyance.
How do you fix this?
For this article, we’ll assume your bath and shower has a tub spout and a shower head, and that you pull up or push down on a little knob on your bath’s tap to route water either to just the tub or up to the shower head.
This little knob is what’s attached to the shower diverter and no matter how hard you pull up, you just can’t stop the tub spout from leaking! Don’t worry. There’s hope for this as a simple DIY fix. Read on and learn just what’s going on and how you can take charge and get a full stream of water for your showers again.
What Is a Shower Diverter in a Bathtub Anyway?
Well, we know what a shower diverter does in keeping water from going into your tub when you’re taking a shower. To set up a bathtub with faucet. The shower diverter does its job simply by raising and lowering a small gate (called a diverter gate) to either block or allow water from coming through.
If there is, then you would use an Allen wrench (hex key) to unscrew the little screw inside there. This will allow you to pull the spout directly out from the wall. If you don’t have a hole and screw at the “‘underbelly” of the spout, then you will need to twist off the spout with your hands.
Do this by grabbing hold and twisting counter-clockwise. If the spout doesn’t budge, then insert a stick of solid wood or the end of a hammer and turn the spout with this added leverage.
It stops doing a good job of this when it gets worn, corroded, stuck or blocked. When parts wear out or are so compromised by hard water build-up there isn’t much you can do to fix or even replace the small parts inside.
You only hope to get a replacement spout such as one like these, which comes with a whole new diverter and lever.