Changing a Shower Head for Dummies

Luxury Shower Head

We've made it over the hump for Plumbing Week, thank heavens, so our research staff doesn't have to dig deep into the hidden corners of the internet looking for stupidity related to fixtures and pipe. Of course, it's not all that hard to find: other than carpentry, plumbing may well be one of the most frequently abused topics for self-appointed freelance "experts." Experts like Sharon Vile (formerly blueheron on HubPages.com), who likes to write about what she calls "Ladies' Craft Projects" - including a few on plumbing, such as "How to Install a New Showerhead: Another Ladies' Craft Project." At least she can punctuate!

This isn't Vile's first trip to this particular well, not by a long shot, and something we've noticed with her is her preference for joint compound over Teflon® tape for sealing threads. Says Vile,

"I prefer joint compound, a gooey paste that acts as a waterproof “glue” to keep threaded fittings from leaking."

Maybe Sharon should read up on that topic: plumbers (people who do this stuff for a living instead of calling it a "craft project") will tell you that you use pipe dope for permanent fittings and PTFE for temporary fittings: a shower head is a temporary fitting, Sharon. Heaven help you when you need to install yet another new shower head...

Vile also has some problems when it comes to choosing her tools. For this job, she "informs" her readers that

"A small pipe wrench (8” will be plenty for this job) is best, but you can get by with any ordinary wrench."

Sorry, Sharon, but you don't use a pipe wrench on finished fixtures -- especially if you're one of those dummies who can't remember which way to set your pipe wrench. On top of that, the typical eight-inch pipe wrench has a jaw capacity of about one inch. If you follow Vile's advice: "...cover any metal parts you are wrenching together with a soft cloth, so you don’t scratch them..." ...there's a good chance the one-inch jaw opening isn't sufficient for the female coupling and the "soft cloth." Oh, and you can't just use "any ordinary wrench," either: many shower head couplings don't have flats, so an open-end wrench will just slip off. You'll probably need to use slip-joint pliers or better yet, a strap wrench.

"Advice" like this, especially when it takes up more than 1500 words of page space, is the reason we started this little blog; and people like blueheron are the reason we can hand out another Dumbass of the Day award every day. Sadly, there's a lifetime of this kind of bullshit out there...

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