My handheld shower is falling apart. The body has a crack that dribbles water, and the lever for adjusting the spray pattern recently broke off. I know that makes it sound like a piece of crap, but it’s actually a pretty nice unit. It was here when we bought the house, so it may just be old.
So I need to replace it, but here’s the problem: there’s a vertical bar attached to the wall with a slide-mount on it for holding the showerhead. I don’t want to replace all that stuff because it’ll probably mean drilling a new set of screw holes through the tile (for the new slide bar), and plugging/patching the old holes. If I can use the old hose with the new handheld unit, this would solve everything (the slide mount grips a tapered feature on the end of the hose). But I don’t know if that’s going to work. The odd thing is that I can’t even determine what the brand is on our existing unit, so I can’t necessarily match brands.
So here’s the question: do handheld showers use industry standard screw thread for hose attachment? If I have a brand “A” handheld shower, and the hose from a brand “B” handheld shower system, is it certain/likely/unlikely/impossible to assemble the two?
I am pretty sure they are standardized, most of them anyway. I have, in the fairly recent past, replaced a head on the original flexible pipe and had no trouble. I was easily able to buy just a new shower head (and had a reasonably wide choice of different models), without needing to buy any of the rest of the assembly, so the very fact that there is a market for these suggests that there must be standardization. (I do recall having to select any particular size or thread type either. In that respect they were all the same.)
I am in the UK, so that might make a difference, but I really doubt it. I don’t recall ever trying to install just a head when I lived in the USA, but I had no problems there with installing a complete hand-held assembly. The thread on the pipe coming out of the wall was clearly standardized.
It is an easy job, and I say that as one of the least ‘handy’ people you could ever hope to meet.
Keep this in mind, if there is calcium build-up on the threads you will have a hard time getting anything to fit. I had that problem when I was replacing my tub spout, I thought I had some weird size but all I needed to do was clean the junk out of the threads.
I have replaced just the head a couple times and never had a new head that didn’t fit. Remember to use plumbers tape so it doesn’t leak at the screw it on part.
See, I would have thought to do that too, but the other week I installed a new shower head in my apartment (yes, got landlord’s permission. The old one was like you see in high school gyms, I put on a handheld one with a few spray patterns,) and the instructions said to put Teflon tape on the pipe coming out of the wall, but NOT to put any on the threads where the hose screws in, to either the shower head or the “mount” area.
FTR, I did as it said, used no tape and only screwed it hand tight, and there are no leaks.
teflon tape (arguments are had if this should be used on plumbing at all regardless on how or where it is sold) shouldn’t be used on plastic to plastic parts (like head and hose) designed to fit together.
There are three or four different pipe thread standards. In the US we typically encounter only two, but on European or Chinese made stuff, there might be two or three more, or a nonstandard use of threading not meant for pipe. It’s a bitch.