How to replace single handle shower faucet?

Sources SVG
Answer
To replace a single handle shower faucet:
  1. Turn off the water supply to the faucet by shutting off the valves under the sink. Open the faucet to relieve pressure and test that the water is off
    1
    .
  2. Remove the faucet handle by prying off the decorative cap, unscrewing the handle screw, and gently lifting off the handle2.
  3. Unscrew the cap that holds the faucet cartridge in place. If it's difficult to remove by hand, use a crescent wrench but be careful not to damage the finish4.
  4. Remove the cam, packing, and ball by lifting up on the ball stem4. Inspect these parts for wear and replace if needed.
  5. Install the replacement packing and cam over the stem of the ball, engaging the tab on the cam with the slot in the body. Push down4.
  6. Partially unscrew the adjusting ring, then place the cap over the ball stem and hand tighten onto the body while pushing down on the cam to keep it engaged4.
  7. Tighten the adjusting ring until no water leaks around the stem when the faucet is fully open and pressure is applied to the handle. Overtightening can cause premature wear4.
  8. Put the handle back on, ensuring it's aligned properly. Secure with the screw and replace the decorative cap
    1
    .
  9. Turn the water back on and check for leaks. If the leak persists, you may need to replace the entire cartridge2.
The key is to identify the source of the leak, replace any worn washers or O-rings, and reassemble everything properly. With the right replacement parts and care during installation, you can fix a leaky single handle shower faucet yourself24.




Author: Spreadsheets Made Simple



Key insights

  • The key to compatibility when replacing a shower kit is to look at the excussion plate trim and the placement of the screws.
  • The removable shower head and valve trim plate make for an easy installation process.
  • Threading the shower head clockwise ensures the tape doesn't lift up and bundle, creating a secure seal.
  • The Moen Gren model shower head has an extension arm for a sprayer option, providing versatility for different shower preferences.
  • The magnet feature on the shower head makes it easy to attach and detach.
  • The process of putting everything back together can be satisfying and rewarding.
  • Make sure the shower handle and valve trim kit are aligned properly to control the maximum temperature setting for safety reasons.
  • The new shower head and handle kit comes with a key to hold it in place, ensuring a secure and stable installation.

Timestamped Summary

  • 00:00 Replace shower head and valve kit by matching the excussion plate trim to ensure compatibility without soldering or changing pipes.
  • 00:56 Remove old shower head and arm, apply Teflon tape to new shower arm before installing to prevent water damage.
  • 03:24 Thread the shower head and valve trim kit into the wall, ensuring a tight seal without overdoing it.
  • 05:31 Replace shower head and valve trim kit, use vice grips to tighten handle, and assemble supply hose.
  • 09:15 Remove old shower head and handle/valve trim kit, clean up, and replace with new parts.
  • 11:45 Properly align and install the shower handle and valve trim kit to control maximum temperature setting, replace and secure with set screws, be prepared for unexpected issues like a broken valve.
  • 15:09 Replace shower head and handle/valve trim kit, fix water running issue.
  • 16:58 Replace shower head and handle/valve trim kit, subscribe for more DIY videos.

Video Full Text

  • 00:00 Hey everyone so today we're going to put in a new shower kit. We're going to be replacing the shower head. Here this gold shower arm behind it and then we're going to replace. This valve kit down here uh and one thing that you should keep in mind whenever you're trying to replace these at least for mowing ones. I'm not certain for all the others but the way to tell if this is going to be compatible with any new one you're buying is to look at the excussion plate trim. So here this one has kind of a circle with little keyholes on the top of it and then what's also important is where the screws are placed. So I've got a screw here uh which the video is reversed. But this is actually diagonally top right and then there's another one down here diagonally bottom left so if you find an discussion plate by Mo and you're replacing a mo one that looks like this. Then you know that it's going to fit with the valve that's in the wall and then you're not going to actually have to do any soldering or changing of the copper pipe behind the wall. Let's give you a quick look.
    Read More
  • 00:56 This is the one that we're going to be installing today so it's got this uh removable shower head and then also the valve trim plate down here below. We're not going to be using the actual spouted arm. Though since this is just a standing shower there is no spouted arm on this one or tub spout. All right. We'll start first by going after the shower head. So we need to first get the head off and then we'll be able to twist off this shower arm that just threads into the pipe here in the wall so to get this off. I'm just going to use two pairs of vice grips ones to hold this copper arm steady and then I'm going to twist this one here counterclockwise okay. Here's the vice grips I'm going to use so one to clamp onto that shower arm like I said and then the larger one I'm going to use to actually twist off that existing shower head okay. Once you get it going. It starts to come off pretty easily. You probably don't need B pairs anymore okay that was easy enough get the shower arm off. Uh first. We'll just take this discussion plate off that just comes off pretty easily. Now we need to just twist this counterclockwise as well. These tend to be in there pretty solid so there's a trick to getting these out. We're going to use a screwdriver to give us a little bit of a lever arm to make that much easier to torque that and to twist it out of the wall. So you just stick that in there and then use one hand to kind of hold the parallel to the ground part of the shower arm steady and then just twist the other counterclockwise and then once you get that going that one starts to come off pretty easily as well. All right. That's out now we got our new shower arm for the new shower head but before we put that into the hole and twist that on we actually need to put Teflon tape onto that to create a water sight Tight Seal between these threads and the threads that are in the wall. If you don't do that then you risk water dripping down slowly over time behind your wall uh and then that can cause uh water damage mold other issues that you don't want.
    Read More
  • 03:24 Now. The trick is whenever you're threading this whenever you're looking at the uh hole for the side that you're going to be threading. You want to be threading that clockwise. Now you can imagine whenever you go to thread this into the hole. In the wall. You want the threads to be running along with the twist that you're doing so if you do it counterclockwise and you're twisting against the tape. It's going to make the tape want to lift up and bundle up and then that's not going to do what it needs to do so. You need to make sure you're threading it clockwise when you're looking at the hole go ahead and thread that okay we'll go ahead and thread that now I typically try to go around about three or four times. You don't need to overdo it to the point where you're going to have trouble actually threading it into the wall. Just make sure you're keeping it tight the whole time you're doing that as well and then when you pull it off there's likely to be just a little bit. Extra just make sure you follow through and then tighten it up. So it's a nice tightly wrapped seal around there. Now we're just going to reverse that process to put it back in uh. We'll tighten it up with our hand first and then we'll use the leverage from our screwdriver to give that a nice tight seal near the end of it and then I usually start reverse threading it initially because I want to make sure I'm not cross threading it whenever it's going in there. So I'll turn it backwards a time or two till. I feel it loosen and then go ahead and twist it. Forward I can feel that's threading nice and smoothly okay.
    Read More
  • 05:31 Once you feel it's giving you a lot of resistance. Then we're going to do just one more about half turn here with our screwdriver just to get it facing down the correct direction for the shower all right for this particular shower head. This is a mowing uh Gren model so it's got this and then it's also got the uh extension arm that you can detach and have the sprayer option as well. But the back of this this is the part that you need to thread onto the shower arm up there but to actually be able to move it. You have to first loosen this nut up here just hand loosen. It then that allows us to freely turn and rotate and then we'll go ahead and mount this to the shower arm up. There. One thing I will mention is that some models will tell you to use the Teflon tape. This one actually has if you can see in there there's a rubber washer that's going to create the watertight seal so you don't actually need. It does not call for it. In the instructions. The thread seal tape for where the shower head attached to the shower arm so I'm not going to put it on this one find out later if we have any drips there. So I've hand tightened that as far as I could but I do actually want to use my vice grips to give it a little bit more just to make sure it's a fully tighten uh seal there. But I don't want to rip off all the paint finish on that uh on that nut there. So I'm going to actually wrap it with this towel and then I'm going to use the vice gript around the towel to give it another twist all right that feels much more secure. Now I feel a lot better about that before I connect that to the shower head you'll notice I had to take that off you can catch on earlier I forgot to put on my excussion trim plate. So I had to take all that off wasn't too bad fortunately. But now I got to slide this back on there and just to show you how close so. This just covers the hole that needs to be made to put that shower head into the wall so slide that up makes it look nice and pretty. Now. I'm going to go ahead and uh reassemble what I had already taken off. Now we're back where we were just need to assemble. This uh supply hose from the shower head to the detachable shower arm and we'll get that into position tighten up that nut up top a little bit till that feels secure and then this is actually pretty nice this grade in model from mowing has magnet Texs so magnet on the back. There it just snaps into this magnet like that and that's pretty easy okay and that's what that looks like if you zoom out a little bit. It's a pretty nice looking shower head okay now we'll go ahead and get started with the actual valve trim kit down here.
    Read More
  • 09:15 So the first thing we need to do is underneath of this. It's very difficult to show you but there's just a little set screw that uses an allen wrench. So I'm going to need to get that off and then I'll just unscrew this screw and the screw up here and then I'll be able to pull this trim plate off and then there's a couple other pieces that are going come out. But we'll get to that okay. That's just a little set screw that was in there and this should slide off although it's been here a long time so might take a little bit of manipulation okay. Now we've got those two screws I mentioned before and then there's also this screw here in the middle that will need to pull off this valve control unit and then this piece will come off but it probably will give you some trouble as well. So you just need to hold this arm here while you're pulling this face off all right getting. Those pieces off was a bit of a nightmare because they were corroded on there so so badly but the piece that I pulled the screw out of this normally would just pull right off of the actual valve. Here the valve stem here but uh that I had a lot of corrosion as you can see. So I had to bang on it a little bit but now that we got that off it shouldn't be too much work to get the new trim plate on there. So we'll get to that okay. Now we got everything off just going to do a little bit of clean up while we have it loose okay. Now we can start putting this thing back together. First we're going to throw that sleeve over top of the existing valve kit when you're doing that just make sure it goes on.
    Read More
  • 11:45 There all the way to the back I'll show you that quickly so just making sure this goes as far back as it's able to go otherwise. The other pieces might not fit exactly how they're supposed to then we'll go ahead and throw that disccussion plate over top of that and we'll screw uh to both of those screw mounting holes. This next piece here it's actually two pieces that go together and depending on how you fit them together. It's going to limit the max temperature that you're able to set this to if you're doing it for a child's bathroom and for safety reasons you don't want to get too hot if you want it to go the full range just align those two top pieces together but if you want to limit it. Then you'll offset that to limit where the actual maximum is able to uh set to as far as the temperature. This one I'm going to set it to the maximum and this just slots in there easily okay. Then the last piece is what the actual shower handle is going to connect on to and then you want to make sure this piece here is just to the left of the valve uh or sorry for the temp limiter that you just put on there and the video might be reversed here but in an actuality you want to make sure is to the left and then there's just a little screw for that piece right in the center there and then we'll just put the last Finishing Touch on it putting on that actual shower handle and then there's going to be just the same as we did in the beginning to take the old one off there's going to be a set screw that goes down into the bottom. Here. Okay just make sure that's slotted on there all the way then it comes with this little set screw and the Allen wrench that goes with it. Let's try to hold all that together okay all right so we had a bit of an unexpected nightmare when we went to go turn that on the old valve was actually broken so inside the wall. Here is something that looks like this and I actually just pulled it out of there but but I can show you here on the side. That's where the valve should be moving on and off as this thing is turned left and right.
    Read More
  • 15:09 If I just put this on the ground quick see as I turn this. This is actually broken free so that's not turning the water off. Now luckily with the one that I purchased you can actually pull these out of the wall so this would be slid in there and then to hold hold it in place. It's just this little you can call it a key or whatever you want to call it. But this slots in there. Once it's in the wall and then that holds it in place. You can see right. There is where it slots in to make sure it doesn't slide in and out so I just pulled this pin here had to wiggle that around a little bit was able to get that out now my new one came with the actual valve kit which I didn't need. Cuz I am compatible with the one the wall but I was able to pull the new one of these out. So I'm hopeful that I can slide this in there put back on the discussion plate the shower handle and all that and then we'll see if that fixes the issue I got the water back onto the house. Here's the new one that I put in there. So I just pushed this in and then I took that key and stuck it back in there that keeps it in place and so it can't fall out. Now you can see obviously the water is not running. So this new one did indeed fix the issue but I'll just throw this on there quick to show you that it is actually working so. If I twist that water turns on as expected. So luckily. This wasn't a uh complete nightmare. I'm sorry I was having trouble finding the off position should be right there all right. We got that all button back up here. We got the valve on.
    Read More
  • 16:58 We got the shower head. The sprayer arms show real quick everything's working as expected now. This a little latch up here if you want the uh water to come out of both just a sprayer or just the top end of that. So we're all set now but thank you again for watching hanging with me through uh a couple hiccups there. But if you got value from this video I appreciate if you give me a thumbs up if you want to be notified for future DIY or Home Improvement. Videos go ahead and subscribe but thanks again for watching and we'll see you here on the next one.
    Read More