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So a few months ago, the hot water handle on my shower kind of fell off. It turns out, the grooves on the handle part had worn down so that it could no longer turn the water on and off. I tried to go to Lowes and Home Depot just to buy a new handle, but everyone I talked to there just laughed and said I'd have to knock down the wall and replace the entire shower...thing.
I was using one of those octagonal wrenches they use to put together furniture as a makeshift handle until this morning. See, I woke up with a sinus infection kinda feeling, so I decided to run the hot water with the bathroom door open to slightly humidify my entire house.
Except apparently, that finally wore the wrench down to the point that it too can no longer control the water. So the hot water has been running for quite some time.
I've already called an emergency plumber. I'm sure I'm going to be paying out the nose.
Any tips on dealing with plumbers? Thing is, I don't want them to just turn off all my water. I kind of need water. And showers. I really need a new handle for my shower. I'm really hoping the Home Depot people were lying.
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There must be some kind of cone or cover over the base of the handle. If you remove that cover, you may be able to remove the inner workings of the faucet. Usually just a matter of removing a nut-like part near the top. Note that occassionally the nut needed to get the inner workings out is a reverse or left-handed nut; it turns in the opposite direction. Remember to shut your water off. You can take those inner workings to a true hardware or plumbing store and get them replaced.
This is roughly the same procedure as replacing a leaking faucet washer.
If you don't have basic machanical skill and a basic knowledge of plumbing, then perhaps you should let a handyman or plumber deal with it.
Personally, I've always valued skill and money in my pocket over dependancy on over priced 'professionals'. I put 'professionals' in quote because rarely are they ever truly trained professionals.
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I had to have the plumbers come. My boyfriend couldn't come over, and I'm apparently not strong enough to turn the knob that shuts off the hot water to the shower.
And they were all lewd and leery.
And I need a new set of shower fixtures, but those people are NOT going to install them because I don't think I could hear one more, "Why don't you get your man to do this? If I was your man, I'd be home ALLLLLL the time" without chucking a fire extinguisher at someone's head.
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My toilet floooded and I had to have the maintainence guy come over. Which is embarassing This place is a mess and I hate to clean so much.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Pearce, I thought you were an apartment dweller...?
Condo...so while the condo association is responsible for the plumbing and things inside the walls, technically the handle of the shower is outside the wall. And our condo plumber is out of town.
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My gut feeling, based on what you have said, is that those guys you talked to at those stores are morons studying to become idiots - and sleeping through most of their classes. Ditto for the plumbers you mentioned.
The guys who run the small local True Value store here in Page, Arizona have always been very helpful to me when I’ve had questions, and our local plumber is good man also. Those guys really know their stuff.
But I’ve discovered that when I go out of town to the bigger stores like Home Depot, and Lowes or even to our local fancy shmancy Super Wal-Mart, I’d better already know what I’m looking for and have a real good idea how to fix my problem before I go into their stores because those folks are less handy handy-men than I am. (And I’m always about two wrenches and a roll of tape short on know-how.) I laugh in derision every time I see one of their vaunted ads on TV. “You can do it. We can help.” What a load of fertilizer!
But alas, none of my above rant helps you with your problem, does it?
But I do have a couple of suggestions that might be of help. At lease there is a remote chance they might be of help:
If your shower handle is made of plastic like most of them I’ve seen, and the splines are stripped, then it should be a simple matter to replace it. The male end of the valve inside the wall (which the handle is screwed to) is usually made of brass and those splines do not get stripped. But even if that part is worn out, it screws out of the valve housing and can be replaced. Even the brass seat inside of that can be screwed out and replaced or even just ground down and smoothed off. And each part is a fairly strait foreward job. Of course I can’t vouch for all brands, but the ones I’ve had to deal with are all like that. The main problem I’ve run into is corrosion and hard water buildup, and that usually means it is a little tough sometimes to get that valve loose. I’ve never had to tear out a wall. Yet.
But of course you are talking about just the handle and that is, by far, the easiest to replace.
This summer I installed a shower kit, and one thing that was helpful to me was that I was able to google several online stores which sold the same brand and model of shower valves that I was working with. Some of those sites had pictures and diagrams of the different components. So if you know the brand of shower valve you have, you may be able to get some information that way.
I’ve also noticed that the internet has a lot of handy-man sites that are not tied to stores like I’ve mentioned in the above paragraph. I’m beginning to think that Google is god. Not The God, mind you, but a god. Of sorts, anyway.
With other screw-it-up-yourself projects I’ve done in the past, I’ve got useful information from my local library which has a pretty good section of handy-man type books with loads of pictures. So your local library may have some stuff like that too.
And finally, if you have a digital camera, you might consider taking some pictures of the handle and the internals inside the wall. And then posting them or emailing them to me and maybe I and /or some of the other folks on Hatrack can come up with some other suggestions.
Well, I don’t know if any of this advice is useful at all. But at least it’s free.
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And our condo plumber is out of town.![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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