*Having my first shower after months of hard work, the room starts to fill up* "I forgot the fecking drain!"
Hey guys! Would anyone happen to know (hoping so, given the amount of bathroom posts on here recently!), if my shower is now requiring more and more force to turn off in order to stop it dripping, is this likely to be a cartridge that needs replacing? I did get a plumber to look at it a long time ago, but I can't remember what the prognosis was...
The thermostatic mixer can wear (apparently) so they tend to "turn" further before shutting off (in my experience). I've never got to the point where it needed replacing though as I always could shut off the water.
Yeah, it's one of those single knob types, with a moveable collar to control temperature. I've tried to find a picture, but can't see one, I'll continue looking and see what I can find. EDIT: I've taken a photo but for some reason I can't paste into the comments box any more...?
It could be the cartridge, it could just be scale build up - it may be worth just taking the front off and squirting some WD40 around to see if that helps. tbh, I always rely on plumbers for anything water-related - I'm fine with electrics, but for some reason plumbing just scares the bejeezus out of me
Same. Two houses ago I added a shower above a bath. I had the side of the bath off for 6 weeks and was checking for drips obsessively, at least twice per day. I don't need that sort of stress in my life.
Water and mains electricity are two things I don't **** about with. I'll change a light, or fish something out of the u-bend or something, but faffing about with the wires or pipes beyond where they stick out of the wall? I'll pay someone any day of the week for that.
I'll do anything: woodwork, painting, welding, plastering, plumbing, vehicle repairs, tiling, electrics, etc. but wallpapering is the limit for me. There's something about wet paper as a medium that I just can't work with; a man's got to know his limitations.
Plastering and papering can get in the sea as well. If you thought wallpaper was a pain, In the last house I built a tray ceiling and decided I would use lining paper to minimise the possibility of visible seams. I had to take a month off the project after that ordeal. Today I plan work specifically around not needing to do any plastering or papering. I'm covering the front and rear walls of a cinema-to-be in an acoustic felt cladding 20% because acoustics and 80% because it means I don't have to plaster or line them. In the same room, the width of the tray ceiling is defined by an area of ceiling without any plaster skim due to a cupboard that was removed.
I've recently been doing some plastering/skimming. I hate it. I also haven't wallpapered for over a decade, because I hate doing it. Bah.
Me too! Having had burst pipes in units at work, I've seen flood damage and I don't want to be the cause of it. 'Leccy doesn't come out of the 'pipe' unless you touch it or do something stupid...
Ha! Think I'm the complete opposite to some of you chaps! I've happily tiled a bathroom (as a pair), replumbed and hung a new sink (although after having had a two foot, long-dead rat pulled from a toilet bend in an old house when re-fitting a bathroom, I don't go near those as a rule), will work on the car if I have an assistant to guide me, happy with woodwork and most other non-specialist bits, but electricity is shockingly final and scary (especially after accidentally sticking my finger onto a broken bare mains wire in a light fitting). My Dad, on the other hand, seems to have no grounding in the lethality of it and dives right in. "Have you turned the fuse box off?" "Doesn't matter - you're already poking it!" I must admit, they were all pretty much one-off or low frequency jobs and there was much learning as you go involved. I tend to start things thinking they'll be straightforward or at least a rewarding challenge and then quickly end up swearing I'll never do THAT again (I have been warned off of re-cabling the lounge wiring into the walls). Cheers for these. Sounds stupid and I will do some more research, but do I need to turn the water off to take it apart, or are the connections elsewhere/clear of the parts I'm removing?
If you're just taking off the two dial/knob thingies then no, you shouldn't need to turn the water off. The knobs should just pull off after loosening the grub screw (if there is one)
Had to replace a thermostatic shower valve which took 10 minutes to watch the you-tube video and 10 minutes to do. The thing that took two weeks was finding the stopcock to turn off the water and getting Wessex Water to fix it as it was leaking (there wasn't one indoors)!
Pipe freeze kits can come in handy at times like that, but they are a gamble that the job will go smoothly and you haven't forgotten to get any of the parts needed to complete it.
I'm after some tool recommendations. I'm generally pretty satisfied with my tools at the moment, but they all have a similar issue whereby the instant they leave my grasp they simply disappear. It's a real drag and makes getting anything done take twice as long as it should otherwise. Spent most of the afternoon DIYing yesterday but the majority of it was just looking for tools that I had just put down, only to find minutes later that it teleported itself to clear the other side of the room. This is mainly limited to hand tools, but occasionally some power tools even have the issue as well.
