So I have a badly leaking bathtub shower combo faucet, and decided to flex my long atrophied DIY muscles to try and replace the valve stem on the hot water faucet. Looking on the Home Depot website I see a number of different brands of valve stems (Pfister, American Standard, Gerber) each of which says its compatible with its own brand of faucet.
The shower faucet I have, which probably dates back probably 50 years, doesn’t have any brand label on it, but my understanding from reading various websites is that in the olden days faucet stem valves were pretty universal. Does anyone have an idea of which brand is most likely to be compatible with my ancient plumbing? I would take the old one out and do a comparison shop at the store, but I need to buy tools to do that and so want to pick up everything I need in one trip to avoid lingering Covid.
No, they weren’t universal 50 years ago.
You need to remove the valve stem, and take it into HD or a plumbing store and match it.
Not only does the valve body have to match, but the stem itself does, too.
Heck, when I had to replace the valve stem in my American Standard there were two different model numbers that were juuuuuuust different enough not to be interchangeable.
Yeah, this stuff is a total pain in the ass; you’d think the manufacturers would put a number somewhere on these things to tell you what you need to replace them with. But no… they just all produce about 2 dozen close, but not quite identical versions of the same thing that you have to squint at and try to figure out if you’ve got the right one or not, even when you take it to the store with you.
The valve stem is one of the least standard of all non-visible, non-decorative plumbing parts. The end that deals with the water may be standard: (it often is here), but the end that attaches to the handle is matched to the family of handles provided by the sales and marketing side of the company.
Because of the standardization of the valve body, I can replace the valve stem on any of my standard valves with any standard valve stem that is long enough – and which has some odd mismatched handle that looks totally out of place and is always the wrong height. Which you would sometimes see in cheap rental accommodation
There are also mixer valves. They have standard threads and diameters, but nothing else in common with each other.
Thanks all, this does not bode well for my success but I’ll do my best to soldier on. I’ll let you know how it comes out, provided by Den where I’m writing from doesn’t end up waist deep in water.
You may need a shower valve socket (they come in a set of three or four), but with one of those, it’s quite easy to remove the old valve. And once you’re removed it, you can take it the store and find a replacement. Note that you may want to replace the valve seat at the same time.
I know you don’t want to hear this, but 50 year old valves don’t need new stems, they need new valves.
There are retro fit options to replace old two handle shower valves. If the wall on the other side is accessible, you can install it from the other side so you don’t have to disturb the shower enclosure. A paintable plastic access cover can go over the hole.
