Took a shower the other day, and when I tried to turn off the water, the “cold” faucet worked, but the “hot” faucet didn’t turn off the hot water. I rent, and the maintenence man fixed it, and now is on vacation. Well, I took a shower today, and the same thing happened. So my question- before I try to fix this thing myself- is this something a fairly technically minded person, but one who has not tackled plumbing before, could fix on his own?
Maybe, but it may be wise to wait and have it done by the maintenance man when he gets back. Plumbing repairs sometimes escalate into something more involved than what is expected. You’d have to shut off a water valve to work on it. If it did turn out to be something that you weren’t able to complete, that valve may have to remain shut off until the repair is finished, which would mean at least no hot water in the shower, and possibly no hot water – or no water at all – in the bathroom, or even the whole apartment.
Even worse, if a leak somehow results in what you did, you would be responsible for any damage.
Yeah. Renting means never having to find your wrench.
It can or can’t be a difficult job. It’s typically a matter of replacing worn out rubber wahsers and o-rings inside the fixture but the hard part is getting at these parts.
It can get pretty involved if you have to get a tap puller tool to remove the handle and then pull out the entire cartridge. Also depends how corroded the current plumbing is.
Well, they may not be pros, but they will be responsible. They will hold you responsible for whatever happens.
Whether you could repair it is very questionable too. Since you are asking, the answer is likely NO. Many bath faucets require odd sized wrenches to remove, stuff like 23/32 and junk like that. You don’t have the set required. You could use other hand tools-maybe. If it’s an older type faucet, you will need a new seat and stem seal. You don’t have a seat wrench either do you? If you had the seat and seal in your hand you could head to HOme Depot or Lowes. I give it 50/50 they would not match your seat. If you get something cross threaded you could easily be in for a $500 pro repair to solder in a new faucet tree.
Bottom line: Your only responsibility is to notify the landlord. It doesn’t rise to an emergency level unless water is running wild. In that case, there should be a cut-off either behind the wall or in the basement.
Thanks, yeah I’ll just wait for the guy to come back, I guess I can deal with turning my shower on and off from the basement for a week
Plumbing leads to more plumbing.
Yes it does.
Call a pro or spend 1 hours looking for tools, 30 minutes at Home Depo choosing one from hundreds of similar looking but different washers, 20 minutes trying to take the faucet apart, 10 minutes fixing it, then another 20 minutes repairing your previous incorrect fix. Not to mention 20 minutes cleaning up your mess.
Oh, I am not a plumber.
Out of curiosity , I looked up what fixing a shower faucet entails- there’s a LOT of parts for so seemingly basic a procedure- Hell, I turned off the water to the house just by turning a simple valve, why do “plumbing” parts even need to be involved? why not just turn the nob: nob turns a valve?
What type of shower faucet do you have? Is it a single handle faucet or the traditional double knob type faucet?
If it’s a single handle that you turn one direction to add more or less hot or cold water, it sounds like the ceramic cartridge has become defective and needs to be replaced. If its the traditional double knob faucet, it sounds like the gaskets on the hot valve have become defective and need to be replaced.
If it’s a standard double handle faucet then the handle is probably stripped out (it turns but is spinning on the valve stem). Buy a new one and install it yourself.
And if you can’t do it and there is no maintenance person for a week then it’s up the the owner to call a plumber out in a timely manner.