Tub Faucet Replacement for Dummies

anti-scald valve for shower-tub combo

According to our staffers, some of the worst DIY "help" published by freelancers can be classified as someone thinking that the steps in a fix-it job they just finished are the same for all similar jobs. A surprising number of them, at least what we've seen,¹ are in the field of DIY plumbing repairs. That's exactly what's gotten us going today: returning DotD Ken Crawford in a HubPages.com post he called "How to Replace a Single Handle Bathtub Faucet Yourself" (now, for unknown reasons, at Dengarden.com). We ID'ed him as the eHow contributor because he used the same profile photo...

One thing we noticed about this post is that, Ken sure needed those eHow content editors to clean up his grammar! We'll try to stick to his factual and logical problems, though. We're talking problems like,

"One way to cut down on faucet repairs is to simply replace the faucet."

We'll be frank: we'd rather put new washers or a new cartridge in our faucet every ten or fifteen years than replace it, 'cause replacing a faucet is hella more work than Kenny thinks it is. One of the reasons is that he thinks that,

"The cut off [sic] valves are behind the same wall the tub faucet mounts. An access panel to the cut-off [sic] valves is in the adjacent room that shares the wall."

Lucky Ken: unfortunately, that's not always the case. If you're really lucky, there's an access panel or there are shutoffs in the basement; otherwise there's no shutoff and you'll have to hire a plumber to install them. Next, Crawford would have you take off the handle, and then,

"Look for the securing screws that hold the escutcheon plate to thewall [sic]."

Besides the fact that "escutcheon plate" is redundant, some styles require that you remove the bonnet nut before you can pull off the escutcheon. Then there's this business for removing the cartridge:

"Locate the c-clip that secures the cartridge to the bathroomplumbing [sic]. Some cartridges have up to three c-clips. Pull the c-clipsout [sic] with a pair of needle nose pliers. Grasp the end of the cartridge with a pair of pliers, and pull the cartridge away from the wall. "

We don't know for certain, but this must be manufacturer-specific: in our collective experience no cartridges have had C clips. Moving right along, Ken says to take off the tub spout and the shower head. No problem. But when it comes to installing a new faucet? He's all wet:

"Insert the new tub faucet cartridge into the wall plumbing. Push the cartridge in until it seats into the plumbing. Insert the retaining clips to secure the cartridge to the house plumbing. Slide the decorative cartridge sleeve over the cartridge. The curve part of the sleeve points to the wall. The escutcheon plate has a recess on the back that secures the sleeve."

Again, manufacturer-specific. We won't argue that whatever brand Crawford had doesn't work that way, but we will argue that Kenny's advice to choose,

"...a single handle shower faucet that utilizes an anti-scald mechanism..."

...means you need a new valve, not just a new handle. And that suggests to us that our Dumbass of the Day had no idea what he was talking about: we'd like to think that someone competent to explain plumbing would know the difference between a full shower set with a valve and a trim set. Must be HubPages, eh?

¹ We don't spend much time looking at automotive repair, but we bet there's a lot of the same problem in that ballpark.

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