How do you fix a dripping shower faucet?
Sources
How to Repair a Leaky Shower Faucet - YouTube
www.youtube.com
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1
How To Fix a Dripping Showerhead - Mira Showers
www.mirashowers.co.uk
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2
How To Fix a Leaky Faucet Handle: A Step-by-Step Guide
rainbowrestores.com
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3
How To Fix A Leaking or Dripping Shower Head or Bathtub Faucet
www.youtube.com
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4
Answer
To fix a dripping shower faucet, you typically need to replace the cartridge or valve stem inside the faucet. Here are the steps to repair a leaky shower faucet:
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Regular maintenance like cleaning the showerhead and replacing worn washers and seals can help prevent future leaks25.
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Turn off the water supply to the shower by locating the shut-off valve and twisting it clockwise. Test the faucet to ensure the water is off2.1
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Remove the shower handle by prying off any decorative caps and unscrewing the handle screw. Gently pull off the handle3.1
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Remove the faceplate or escutcheon to expose the cartridge or valve stem. This may require unscrewing a retaining nut or clip.1
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Pull out the old cartridge or valve stem. Match it to a replacement part from your local hardware store1.4
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Apply a thin coat of waterproof grease to the new cartridge or stem, then insert it into the faucet body, ensuring it is properly aligned.4
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Replace the faceplate, handle and any decorative caps, securing them in place with screws3.1
- Turn the water supply back on and check for leaks. Run the shower to flush out any debris2.
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References
1. How to Repair a Leaky Shower Faucet - YouTube2. How To Fix a Dripping Showerhead - Mira Showers3. How To Fix a Leaky Faucet Handle: A Step-by-Step Guide4. How To Fix A Leaking or Dripping Shower Head or Bathtub Faucet5. Is Your Shower Head Leaking? Try These Easy Fixes | HowStuffWorks
Author: How To Home
Key insights
- Regular maintenance and routine fixes can help prevent and resolve leaking shower heads and bathtub faucets.
- The tools needed for this project include a phillips screwdriver, needle nose pliers, allen wrench, channel locks, and waterproof grease, making it a simple and accessible task for many homeowners.
- Make sure to turn off the water before attempting to fix a leaking shower head or bathtub faucet to avoid a mess.
- Using a cartridge puller can make it easier to remove the cartridge from the shower head or bathtub faucet.
- Using petroleum-based lubricants on rubber parts can degrade the rubber and affect the performance of the product, so it's important to use silicone-based lubricants.
- The process of fixing a leaking shower head involves sliding pieces into place and screwing them in, making it a relatively simple DIY task.
- Turning the water back on and testing it out is a good sign that everything is back together and not dripping anymore.
Video Full Text
- What's up guys adam here with another home improvement video and in this video I'll be showing you how to fix a leaking bath or shower faucet now before. I get into all that if you're new to the channel and you like how to's and do yourself type videos for around the house whether it's new projects or home maintenance and routine fixes then consider hitting that red subscribe button down below. And if you find the content of this video be helpful to you let me know by leaving a comment down in the comment section and also giving the video a thumbs up now. If you have a bathtub or a shower at some point in time this is going to happen. It's just it just is. This is just parts that wear down over time you're going to have a leak coming from either the bath tub faucet or your shower head. Now in this case this is a bathtub shower combo so the leaking is actually coming from where you would fill up the bath at if you don't have a bathtub. It's obviously just going to leak from the shower the shower head.Read More
- But this is a very common thing that needs to be replaced and in every one of these handles there is a cartridge in behind and over time those cartridges just they just wear out just like anything else so you really just have to replace them and it's a fairly inexpensive fix especially when you compare it to if you end up calling a plumber to come out and do this because they're going to do the exact same thing relatively. Speaking. This is a lot less expensive if you can do it yourself and you can. This is actually very simple to do so before. I get into all the steps of how to do this. We're going to take a look at all. The tools that we're going to need in order to get to that shower cartridge and replace it the tools that we're going to need to do this project are a phillips screwdriver. A pair of needle nose pliers an allen wrench our trusty channel locks and a bottle of waterproof grease all right so again. This is just a moen single handle faucet and the cartridge that we need to get to is in behind this handle here but before we start pulling all this apart and pulling things out.Read More
- The first thing you need to do is make sure you've turned the water off if you don't turn off the water and you start pulling this stuff out. You're going to have water spraying all over the place so make sure you turn off the water. If you have a well. You can just turn off the power going to the well but if you have city water you're going to need to go off to go outside or wherever your shut off is and turn that off. So no water can be coming into the house. Another thing I advise you to do is to shut the drain valve so that any of the screws that we're going to be taking out if they fall so they don't go down the drain if you can't shut your drain valve just get a towel and lay it down so that the tile would catch it all right. So the first thing we need to remove is the handle itself and on the single handles. There's usually a screw up underneath of here that needs to be pulled out and it's going to require using an allen wrench. So what I usually do is. I turn it up because that'll expose the screw up top here and then I just put my allen wrench down in there and unscrew the screw. Now that screw is out. The handle will just pull off just like that. Next. We're going to need to take that phillips screw out right there in the middle so get a phillips screwdriver and just unscrew it now that black piece is removed. Next you'll have this white piece back here that stops the handle from turning. It just pulls out and it's actually two pieces one inside of the other.Read More
- They'll both come out then. There's this metal sleeve here that you just pull it out and so now you can see. The shower cartridge is exposed but we can't pull it out yet. There's actually a clip in there that has to come out that will then free it up so then be able to pull it out and we can't get the clip out of there without taking the trim piece off here. So we need to take the trim piece off all right. So now we've got the trim piece off the cartridge is fully exposed. This whole piece right here is the cartridge and it needs to come out so up here on top. You can see this clip that's got to come out in order for this cartridge to then be able to pull out so I just take some needle nose. Pliers put it in there on the top and then pull that clip up and out all right. So now we just need to pull this cartridge out. Now they do make cartridge pullers that you can buy. They'll screw into the stem here and as you screw into it. It actually pulls the cartridge out. I don't use one of those I've never had to use one of those but if you just cannot get this cartridge out by using a wrench then and in this case I usually use channel locks if you can just cannot get that to come out then you might want to go to the store and pick up one of those pullers because it will make it easier but for the most part I just use a pair of channel locks and since I'm throwing this away. I don't care if I damage it at all but don't yank too hard because remember you've got piping in the wall here and too much pulling up and down and pulling on. It can could possibly damage the joints or the piping itself. So you just want to put good pressure on it and just kind of pull it out and as you can see.Read More
- It is slowly coming out all right. So this is a really common cartridge for moen you're going to be able to pick it up pretty much anywhere. I'll post a link down in the description below where you can just click on it and pick this one up all right. So now one of the first things we're going to do with this cartridge that we've got out of the packaging and I've already gotten it dirty with my hands. We're going to need to use some of this waterproof grease. We're going to put this grease on any of the rubber parts and here on the seal. This is just going to help them last longer and it's also going to make it easier to slide this cartridge back into place. You definitely don't want to use anything like vaseline or anything that's petroleum based on these as it could degrade the rubber and it's just not good for the performance of the product so make sure you're using some form of a usually a silicone-based lubricant. All right. So now we've got our lubrication on there now we can put the cartridge back in and the way you can tell that which way is up is this h and c here h obviously is for hot. That's the hot side and then c is for cold and that's the cold side so as long as that's up and you can see those letters the way they're supposed to be you know that that is the top so we'll just go ahead and push this cartridge back in and now this is probably the hardest part of the whole thing. It's really not that hard but we need to take that retaining clip that we pulled out and get it back in the top here. So we'll use our needle nose pliers to get it in there.Read More
- Just to get it started once you've got it in place and started make sure that it's lining up. You'll see the holes down at the bottom make sure it's lining up with those and you just push it right down into those holes. Sometimes people might miss the holes and the outside of the retaining clip will be out here so just make sure it's all lined up and then push it down. Next. We'll take our trim plate and we can put it back up on top here and the way you can tell which way is up. Is. You've got this circle and this notch here at the top that notch just needs to be facing up. Then you can take your screws that you took out put them through the trim piece and you'll need to find where they thread in to the actual fixture in the back itself. This can be a little bit of a pain to do but once you get it started. It's very easy to do. Next. We'll just take that metal sleeve again line that notch up and it just slides right back into place. Then we'll take these two white pieces and line them up with the notch and slide them into place. Next we'll take this piece that the handle attaches to and depending on how this cartridge is turned. You may have to finagle it a little bit to get everything to line up and then you'll just screw it into place. Now we can take the shower handle and slide it back into place and once you slide it on make sure that you push up against it and get it seated and then you'll take that screw put it back into the hole up on top. It'll go down through that hole then through the hole in the plastic underneath and then it actually screws down into a piece of metal that's actually attached to the handle itself.Read More
- All right so now everything is back in its place oh that turns a lot easier now way easier than the old cartridge. So let's go ahead and turn our water back on and test it out all right so the water's back on and we don't have water flying all over the place. So that's a good sign that everything's back together and it's also not dripping anymore so as long as the water comes on and turns off. Then we know we're in good shape all right. Everything looks good all right guys that's pretty much all there is to stopping a shower or bath faucet from leaking. It was actually really easy as you can see fairly inexpensive to do anybody can do it and it saved a ton of money by not having to call out a plumber to have to do it.Read More
- So. I hope that you found this video to be helpful and informative. If you did please let me know by leaving a comment down in the comment section and also giving the video a thumbs up. I really appreciate it and if you like how to's and do yourself type videos like this one. I do a lot of new projects along with repairs and maintenance for around homes. Just like we did here today if you like videos like that and then consider hitting that red subscribe button down below as. I have a new video coming out on a weekly basis and I have a bunch of videos. I've already done in the past you can go check out now so consider hitting that red subscribe button and I hope to see you in the next video.Read More