Shower Valves for Dummy DIY Plumbers

When it comes to the pure form of what the Antisocial Network staffers call "bogosity,"¹ very little beats the bizarre combination of badly-done freelancing and bizarre reassignments found in the niche sites of what used to be the mother lode of misinformation, aka eHow.com. Today, for instance, we look at a Cleveland van Cecil opus at HomeSteady.com, one that's supposed to tell us "How to Troubleshoot a Kohler Shower Valve Problem."

Oddly, the eHow title "How to Replace a Water Supply Valve" redirects here (that was a hunk o' steamin' bogosity written by Giselle Diamond), but to be honest, van Cecil's post doesn't address either topic particularly well. If you were to ask Kohler about troubleshooting one of their shower valves, you'd find a whole list of topics. None of them, however, would start by telling you (as does Cleve) that,

"A Kohler shower valve is usually a self-contained piece called a cartridge. This cartridge valve slides into the water supply." Well, no, Cleve, that's the cartridge, and a cartridge doesn't "[slide] into the water supply." A cartridge controls the supply of water and, if it's for a single-handle faucet, mixes hot and cold water. More to the point, however, van Cecil says jack about troubleshooting a Kohler shower valve. No, he just provides a fractured version of some directions for extracting a cartridge. We won't go into the process of troubleshooting: you know, where is the leak, is the water too hot or too cold, and the like. We'll just make fun of Cleveland's doofus R-and-R directions; rubbish like,

"Remove the screw holding the handle in place and pull the handle off... Grab the washer at the end of the valve with a pair of pliers and pull it off. Inspect it for signs of cracking or wear. Replace it if necessary. "

Umm, dummy, there's not a washer on the end of the handle; but if there were it would sure as heck be necessary to replace it after you've mangled it with your pliers!

"Tape the ends of a wrench with plumber's tape. Grab the valve with the wrench and pull on it to remove it from the wall."

WTF is this "plumber's tape" of which you speak, Cleve? And how (not to mention "why") do you "pull" something with a wrench?

"Cover the valve with a cartridge puller, which comes with your replacement valve... Wiggle the cartridge puller with your wrench till the valve comes free. "

Weird: The phrase "cartridge puller" doesn't appear on the Kohler website. Was Cleve talking about a valve puller? a handle puller? Both of them were mentioned in his very general reference... Either way, the tool certainly wasn't included with the replacement cartridge... And finally, there's this bit of amazing direction:

"Insert a new valve into the hole in the wall, aligning it properly with the water supply line..."

The friggin' "hole in the wall"??!! We don't think there's much more we can say after that closing instruction from the keyboard of our Dumbass of the Day...

¹ Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Click and Clack, the Car Brothers 

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