When it comes to showers in April, you may be thinking about the many spring rain showers we can expect to receive this year in Chicagoland. Spring is easily the wettest season for those of us living in this area; living near one of the Great Lakes lends itself to thunderstorms, hail and the good ‘ol April rain shower.

However, there’s a different type of April shower we’re recommending today: An improved shower thanks to a visit at your home by one of our employees at Hobson Plumbing.

Optimizing the shower

The quality of your showering experience rests on a few factors. First is how quickly the water heats up; second is the water pressure; and third is how consistently the water pressure and temperature stay the way you want. Today, we’re focusing on the third factor.

To help keep things consistently the way you want them, we can install what is called a “pressure balancing device” to your shower’s water source. What this does is detect changes in pressure in the hot and cold water sources leading to the shower, and automatically balance the water coming out of your shower faucet to make sure the temperature remains as consistent as possible.

Examples of when hot or cold water pressure are impacted in the home include when someone flushes the toilet (cold pressure drops); starts the dishwasher (either hot or cold may drop at some point depending on the dishwasher’s settings); cranks up the hot water for hand washing (hot pressure drops); and running the laundry machine on hot for whites (hot pressure will drop at some point).

There’s also the option of completely replacing the shower faucet with a “pressure balanced faucet.” This type of faucet is always detecting the relative balance between the hot and cold water being supplied to the shower. If one source of water pressure drops unexpectedly, a pressure balanced faucet will drop the pressure on the other source to the same degree to ensure one source of water does not overpower the other. This faucet effectively eliminates the risk of having a suddenly very hot or suddenly very cold stream of water coming down on you when you shower.

The importance of balancing water pressure

The biggest risk of not installing a water pressure balancing device (either attached to the water line or within the faucet itself) is experiencing scalding hot water during a shower. If you have a family member who is very young, very old or ill, you should take into account how they would be affected by scalding hot water when deciding whether to install a device to manage the hot/cold pressure balance.

You should note that pressure balanced faucets will reduce the overall pressure of the water coming out of it in those instances in which one source of water pressure drops. This is because when the faucet compensates for the reduced pressure from one of the sources, it reduces the pressure for the other – meaning that the entire overall pressure is significantly lower for the period of time in which one source of water is lower than usual. In most instances, the overall pressure will return to normal in just a few moments.

Ready for a new and improved showering experience?

Now that you’ve learned about how we can improve your morning shower, contact us to set up an appointment today! You can also call us at (630) 761-3400 to find out more about the services we provide.