The bathtub faucet on the cold water side is doing something strange. When I turn the handle, nothing happens until I turn it a little more than half of the way around, then the water comes rushing out all at once. It's not happening on the hot side. This started a few days ago and seems to be getting worse.
I replaced both hot and cold stems and handles several months ago. Not sure if it's related to that but they seemed to be working fine up until now. I took the handles off and don't see any leaks or other strange behavior.
Any ideas?
Update:
I took a shower today and the cold water side started out working fine. About 5 minutes into the shower, all the cold water went away, and I had to turn the handle really far again to get any cold water. And it was really hard to get just a little cold water. It was either a lot or none at all.
Here's a pic the faucet:
Best Answer
To me it sounds like the rubber washer is failing, these are on the base of the stem held in by a brass screw, they do change shape over time and they do fail especially if turned off with force, luckily most plumbing stores or home stores have kits that have the different sizes needed for home repairs for 5-10$ and they can have 20 or more pieces in the kit, there are 2 or 3 standard sized ones they look like little volcanos a disk with a solid cone and a hole down the center, most hose bibs use the same style but the larger diameter, there are also flat ones and yours may look flat because of being crushed but the 3 valve showers I have installed and serviced have all had the cone shaped washers.