Shower Repairs Wellington

A shower that runs hot then cold, dribbles instead of sprays, or keeps dripping after it is off is irritating every single morning. A shower that leaks into the wall or floor is worse, because you often do not know until the paint bubbles, the skirting swells or the boards under the bathroom start to soften.

We repair showers across Wellington City, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and the Kāpiti Coast: mixers and valves, heads and rails, pressure problems and hidden leaks. We work out whether the fault is in the mixer, the hot water system or the pipework, and fix it without lifting more tiles than we have to.

Pricing: quotes are free, and every job gets a fixed price before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.

Shower Repairs Jobs We Handle Across Wellington

• Shower repair
• Leaking shower head
• Shower mixer replacement
• Leaking shower tray
• Temperature swings
• Rain shower upgrades

Shower problems we fix

Typical faults include:

• Shower head drips after the mixer is turned off
• Temperature jumps when someone flushes a toilet or runs a tap
• Weak or uneven spray from the head
• Mixer handle stiff, loose or leaking at the wall
• Water appearing outside the shower, on the floor or in the next room
• Hot water too hot, or not hot enough, at the shower
• Broken rails, hoses and diverters

Temperature swings and scalding risk

When the shower suddenly goes hot or cold as someone uses water elsewhere, the mixer is not coping with a pressure change on one side. In older homes with low pressure hot water and mains pressure cold, the imbalance makes this worse. The fix might be a new cartridge, a mixer designed for your system, or balancing the two supplies.

Safe hot water also depends on the tempering valve, which limits the temperature at bathroom fixtures. Under G12/AS1, new hot water supply to showers, basins and baths in most homes must be limited to 50 degrees C, a change made in 2023 to reduce scalding. If your shower runs scalding hot, the tempering valve may have failed or never been fitted, and we check it as part of the job.

How It Works

Leaks and low pressure

A head that keeps dripping is usually a worn mixer cartridge or washer. Water outside the shower can be a failed seal around the screen, cracked grout, a leaking waste, or a leaking pipe or mixer body inside the wall. We use leak detection to narrow it down before anything is opened up.

Weak pressure has several possible causes: a partly closed or failed valve, a low pressure hot water system, old galvanised pipe narrowed by corrosion, a flow restrictor, or a mixer that is not designed for your pressure. Scale is less often the culprit here than in hard-water parts of the country, because Tiaki Wai's supply to Wellington, the Hutt and Porirua is soft. Sometimes a clean or a valve fixes it; sometimes the real answer is a mains pressure upgrade.

Cost

Head and cartridge replacements sit at the lower end. Replacing a mixer in a tiled wall, chasing a hidden leak or repiping costs more, and we give you the price before we start. If the shower is beyond saving, we quote a new shower installation instead.

Showers in Wellington homes

Many older villas and cottages in suburbs like Newtown, Brooklyn and Hataitai can still run low pressure hot water from a header tank, which limits what any shower can do and makes temperature swings more likely. Those same homes usually sit on piles with a subfloor you can get under, which is good news when a shower is leaking: we can often see the wet framing and trace the leak from below before touching a tile.

Homes from the 1970s and 1980s often have tiled showers over timber floors, where a small long-term leak can do serious damage before anyone sees it. In 1990s homes with monolithic cladding, a shower leak into an outside wall is particularly worth catching early. Apartments in Te Aro and Thorndon add another layer, because a leak can reach the unit below, so finding the source quickly matters to the neighbours and the body corporate as much as to you.

Why Choose Cheeky's Plumbers for Shower Repairs

Shower Repairs FAQs

Shower Repairs Across Wellington

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