My shower has had a slow leak coming from the tub spout &/or the shower massage head (depending on the position of the diverter). It's been like this for years, but has become a much more steady drip in the past couple of days and I'm concerned about the loss of water and whether this drip is causing any additional problems.

Also, the tub is an older model with 3 faucet handles (cold, hot and bath/shower). The hot water handle broke a while ago and I've been using a pair of pliers (:o) to turn the hot water on and off. I've replaced the handle previously, but this time I couldn't get the handle to attach to the valve stem as it APPEARS to me that the valve stem is stripped. :mad: :mad: :mad:

I live in a condo that requires a licensed plumber to do any major repairs and I really don't have the money for that. Is there ANYTHING that I can do to fix the leaking issue myself? Also, does anybody know if it's an expensive job to replace the valve stem? (how expensive?)

As if that's not enough... the drain clogs up and drains VERY VERY slowly. Is there some sort of "home remedy" that I can pour down the drain to unclog the drain from the inside? Can I snake the drain myself?

PLEASE HELP!! Thanks so much in advance for any and all reasonable hints, tips and suggestions!!

If you can, shut the water off to the tub valve from the access panel behind the front of the tub and remove the hot water stem and washer assembly and take it into a plumbing shop and ask for a replacement. I'll put up a image of your valve to help you. At the same time purchase a hand snake and I'll walk you through snaking the drain line. But first fix the faucet. Good luck, Tom

evskids
New Member Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 2


Re: Tub/shower drips, clogs and other issues

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Thanks so much for the advice. The only problem is that I can't turn off the water since the shut off valve is located somewhere down in the shared crawlspace area and it's against condo rules. Oh, well... looks like I'm back to square one! (But at least now, thanks to your diagram, I can use the correct terminlogy! )

Thank you again!

As someone who has water piped hundreds of coindos by law we had to install a individual shutoff in each unit. This is done so if a pipe broke or a bad leak developed the owner could shut his unit down without being flooded out. You MUST have a unit shutoff. It would not only be bad plumbing practice to not install a shut off it would be purely drumb. Ask a maintenance man or a neighbor where yours is. Good luck, Tom