It seems like every shower has its own unique way of controlling water temperature and pressure. Of all the showers I’ve ever used, no two of which have ever been alike, I like my controls the least. Plus the faucet has started dripping lately.

Is this likely to be something I can replace on my own, without a plumber? To me, that means: Can I likely do this without damaging the wall, without having to mess with pipes, and without needing to do anything involving words like “hacksaw”, “weld”, or “plumbing torch”?

Basically I believe in my ability to buy a faucet and control thingie from Home Depot; to use screwdrivers, allen wrenches, pliers, and regular wrenches; to use things like plumbing tape, lubricants, and caulk; and to remember to turn the water off to the house.

Would a project like this likely require anything more complex than that? I tend to prefer shower controls that have separate knobs for hot and cold, but I figure going from a one-knob setup to a two-knob setup is definitely going to require reconfiguring the plumbing. Should sticking with a one-knob solution be okay?

I don’t know if it matters but I live in Florida in the US, and this place was built in the 1980s. I doubt this matters, but my current controls work by turning the larger knob left or right for temperature, and the smaller knob for pressure.

My place does have some annoyances - like the front door is an uncommon size that’s difficult to find replacements for at places like Home Depot. Is there any chance of me running into issues like that when it comes to things like the size of the pipe openings?

Thanks for any insight.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies. It’s pretty clear now that this is something that could very easily end up a lot more involved and time consuming and property damaging than I’m comfortable with.

  • @misterundercoat
    47•1 year ago

    Real talk OP: From your post and comments it’s pretty clear that you don’t have much plumbing experience. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with replacing a shower valve.

    If this is your main bath, this is not the job to learn on. Especially if you don’t have any shutoff valves between your main and the shower. If you run into something unexpected during the repair, and you’d be stuck with all your water shut off while you wait for a plumber, and then you’re also paying emergency rates.

    As it is now, you have all the time in the world to consult plumbers and compare estimates. With your water shut off and your shower broken, your options will shrink really fast.

    If getting into home improvement is something you’re interested in, and this is a spare bathroom you can afford to be out of commission for an indefinite period, and it won’t require your main valve to be shut off, then by all means give it a try. But expect there to be surprises and fuckups as part of the learning process.

    • @theragu40
      3•1 year ago

      I’m someone who used my main (only) shower/bath to learn this stuff on. My wife happened to be 8.5 months pregnant. Don’t be me.

      I got it done, it works, it doesn’t leak, it looks how I want. But it was stressful AS FUCK, and my extremely pregnant wife was showering at the YMCA for almost a week while I was dicking around with this stuff (we re-tiled the whole tub surround, including replacing all the drywall with cement board, reinsulating, vapor barrier, etc). Like…I don’t regret doing it because we had tiles falling off and it needed to be done. And I’m glad I learned all the things I learned.

      But it was not easy, I ran into tons of shit I was not prepared to handle and had to figure out on the fly, and it was very time sensitive and stressful. I might have chosen to start earlier if given another chance lol.

      I will say, one of the first things I did was install shutoffs on both supply lines right below the faucet. That was a very good choice because at least the rest of the house wasn’t down.