Hello all. I live in a condo built in 1916. My shower head has been leaking for some time, and now the pressure has gotten a bit erratic. I brought in a plumber who said the whole valve needs to be replaced, at a cost of $800 + whatever the tile guy will charge to fix up the wall they tear apart. He said that it looked like the shower head and such were probably 70 years old and that repairing wouldn't last. I'm clueless so I thought I'd run this by you folks to see if this seems to make sense, or if I'm being taken for a ride... Has anybody else done this sort of repair at home?
teresa518
Posted:
Member since
Re: Any one here a plumber or married to one??
Not a plumber or married to one but my DH is in a similar business and does piping.
I would tell you the plumber is probably taking you for a ride but it's not definate. Have you tried simply changing the shower head itself? I can't tell you what the problem is simply from your description but you should definately try changing just the shower head first. If that doesn't work, then you probably need to change the shower body - see below.
If the whole 'shower body' - this is all the pipes that run behind the wall of your shower needs to be changed, then the price sounds about right, and you would probably have some re-build work to do on the walls of your shower and replacing the tile. This can turn out to be a large undertaking since your walls are probably plaster behind the tiles (at best) and it will be difficult to get the tiles to line up again. We did some re-tiling in our shower when we first moved in and ended up replacing the tile on one whole wall. It doesn't match the old tile since it was from 1938. My advice, make sure you are ready to re-tile at least the whole wall, if not the whole bathroom if the shower body needs to be replaced. Another option would be to change the shower body from behind - this would depend on what is on the back side of your shower wall (i.e. is it an exterior wall?, is it another room where you can knock out a portion of a wall more easily?).
My DH changed the shower body at his mother's house and it was difficult.
