Gkryhewy
New Member
Hello! Plumbing novice here- we moved into our house a couple of years ago, and I'm gradually learning to at least be able to fake competence at some handy tasks as things come up.
We have two Moen shower fixtures in our ~12 year old house that had begun to drip very slowly no matter where the handle was set. One of the fixtures is used daily and one hasn't been used for probably a year (spare room). From learning online, it seemed a cartridge replacement would likely fix this, so I bought two and opened the first fixture up (spare room).
When I did so, I realized I bought the wrong cartridges. I thought I had posi temp fixtures (1222 cartridges), but mine are moentrol (1225 cartridges). So I closed it up again and now need to replace the cartridges I bought.
However, when I closed everything up and tested the shower, I'm only getting hot water from the shower head. Full flow on hot, barely a trickle on cold, and that could have been residual. I believe I reconnected everything okay and didn't really touch anything once I realized I had the wrong cartridge. I did take the cartridge clip out before I realized my mistake and had trouble getting it back in, so it's possible the cartridge moved a smidge.
So I messed with it some more and discovered online that this might be a balancing spool problem rather than a cartridge problem, although it seems most people with balancing spool problems would get hot water when the handle is turned to cold, rather than no water on cold like I have.
I'm hoping someone can tell me whether I'm on the right track here. Might the cartridge swap fix this issue, or should I spring for the new balancing spool at 60 bucks, and resign myself to the hard battle of getting the old one out?
Also, when I reconnected everything and put the handle back on, I was getting much worse dripping than before I started- maybe somehow I didn't screw the handle to the stem enough, or over tightened, and the valve couldn't close all the way? Should I hand tighten those screws? Anyway I opened things up again and shut off the hot water valve for now to stop the dripping.
Thanks for any suggestions from the experts here.
We have two Moen shower fixtures in our ~12 year old house that had begun to drip very slowly no matter where the handle was set. One of the fixtures is used daily and one hasn't been used for probably a year (spare room). From learning online, it seemed a cartridge replacement would likely fix this, so I bought two and opened the first fixture up (spare room).
When I did so, I realized I bought the wrong cartridges. I thought I had posi temp fixtures (1222 cartridges), but mine are moentrol (1225 cartridges). So I closed it up again and now need to replace the cartridges I bought.
However, when I closed everything up and tested the shower, I'm only getting hot water from the shower head. Full flow on hot, barely a trickle on cold, and that could have been residual. I believe I reconnected everything okay and didn't really touch anything once I realized I had the wrong cartridge. I did take the cartridge clip out before I realized my mistake and had trouble getting it back in, so it's possible the cartridge moved a smidge.
So I messed with it some more and discovered online that this might be a balancing spool problem rather than a cartridge problem, although it seems most people with balancing spool problems would get hot water when the handle is turned to cold, rather than no water on cold like I have.
I'm hoping someone can tell me whether I'm on the right track here. Might the cartridge swap fix this issue, or should I spring for the new balancing spool at 60 bucks, and resign myself to the hard battle of getting the old one out?
Also, when I reconnected everything and put the handle back on, I was getting much worse dripping than before I started- maybe somehow I didn't screw the handle to the stem enough, or over tightened, and the valve couldn't close all the way? Should I hand tighten those screws? Anyway I opened things up again and shut off the hot water valve for now to stop the dripping.
Thanks for any suggestions from the experts here.