Shower vacuum breaker

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Alaskansnowbirds

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Mar 11, 2005
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Camp Verde, AZ
The shower hose in our MH attaches to a vacuum breaker. The vacuum breaker has broken and leaks about as much water as comes out the shower head.

I've looked online an they run for about $38 to $60.

My question.....Is there any reason to have a vacuum breaker in a shower hose? Our shower in the stick house doesn't have one.
 
The vacuum breaker is there to prevent water from being sucked back into your fresh water lines/tank when you loose water pressure (water pump is turned off, disconnect from shore water, etc) and contaminating your fresh water system.

That said it is a "belts and suspenders" type of thing. You have to decide if there is a "danger" to you. I recently had the same problem and replaced the vacuum breaker with a D-spud (google it) connector on the faucet which is used to connect the shower hand help hose (in ours).

Frank
 
Question: Is this vacuum breaker a 1/2 inch IPT thread device, female on the inlet male on the outlet? (This is fairly common) 30 bucks.. I'd be surprised if they are worth 10.

IF you have the room, then you can go to the garden hose section of your hardware store and find one there, now this is a 3/4 inch grden hose device but they will have adapters to 1/2 inch IPT,, you will get out of there for less than fifteen bucks in all likely hood,, works the same.  IF YOU HAVE ROOM.
 
Alaskansnowbirds said:
The shower hose in our MH attaches to a vacuum breaker. The vacuum breaker has broken and leaks about as much water as comes out the shower head.

I've looked online an they run for about $38 to $60.

My question.....Is there any reason to have a vacuum breaker in a shower hose? Our shower in the stick house doesn't have one.

No reason unless your shower head gets left in standing water. That is the only way it will syphon back to the water tank.
 
I agree that  it would be rare for the shower head to start a reverse siphon ( unless you put it into a bucket )

I believe that the vacum breaker also functions to let air into the shower line which allows the hose to drain.

Otherwise it could take some time for the hose to empty. A ton of different bacteria and virus's love a dark moist environment.

It could also be a problem for many who use the shower for storage.

Just my 2 cents.

Gary
 
Funny this should come up now.  Back when I was winterizing I had removed the hose from the faucet set to do whatever it was I thought I had to do at the time. ???  A while later when pumping anti-freeze through everything, I realized the shower faucet leaked very badly right where the hose connected and I assumed I had left out a washer or something.  I looked, but didn't see anything that I thought might cause the leak.  But, with winter coming on, I needed to finish the winterizing so I decided I would wait and work on it this spring - which I just did.  I still didn't see anything so I went to town to buy a new faucet (not a quick thing to do where I live).  After coming up dry at 2 separate RV centers, I wound up ordering a new faucet on-line.  My showers on my upcoming camping trip would have to wait until later.  Today, while I was finishing up dewinterizing, I decided to flush the anti-freeze out of the shower and clean the shower stall even thought the faucet leaked badly.  But, I remembered this thread.  Well, for Pete's sake.  The part of the faucet where the hose connects also serves as a siphon or vacuum break.  There is a little rubber flapper-like insert that is supposed to let water in and block the drain hole when there is water pressure.  Then it opens another hole when water pressure is removed to break the vacuum.  However, the rubber insert was not and would not stay in place.  Oh well, I have a new faucet on order...  So, I continued to clean the shower.  Upon moving the shower curtain, there it was.  A little nylon insert that was supposed to hold the rubber flapper in place, hidden all this time by the shower curtain.  I put the darned thing back together correctly this time and all is well.  This thread made me look a bit closer and solve the problem.  Guess I'll just have a spare shower faucet.
 
While the vacuum breaker does drain the water out of the hose, and that would definitely be advantageous if traveling and storing things in the shower, I don't believe that if the shower is being used on a consistant basis that the formation of bacteria would be any worse than in your shower standpipe at home, or for that matter the water tank in your MH.
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

One thing I forgot to mention in my original post is that we have a tub shower. After you turn on the water you have to turn a diverter valve to get the water to go to the shower. We turn the water on to adjust the temp and let it run into the tub before we turn the diverter valve to send the water to the shower head. I don't see how the shower water could back flow with the diverter valve closed. The only time the diverter valve is open is when the water is turned on to take a shower.

 
Depending on your diverter valve, it may double as a vacuum breaker.. Mine does

If you have the kind where you lift a knob on the tub spigot.. Then it is also the vacuum breaker as it will drop down and let the hose drain back into the tub should pressure be lost.

If you turn a knob.. Then .. Not so good.  The vacuum breaker lets the hose drain if the handset is LOWER than the vacuum breaker.. it drains into the shower.
 

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