What's wrong with these faucets???

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Luana M Howard

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Hello,

When we bought our house (even had it inspected) we did not notice both single-handle shower faucets were strange to use. Perhaps this was a DIY gone wrong in the past I hope someone can be so kind to explain what went wrong and how we can rectify it. Since it's an existing problem, I don't think our home warranty isn't going to handle it. (We've been here 7 years. :p) I have installed shower faucets before, but I want to start with the least invasive solution as possible. Meaning: I don't want to clean up my closet just so a stranger can rip a hole in my closet wall.

The showers both have 2 OFF positions. One all the way to the right and one about midway. The water temperature is scalding upon immediately being turned on, gets colder towards to the center off, and then is varying degrees of warm/hot past the middle off position blasting full force nearly all the time unless it's near one of the OFF positions. The handles are just the turn-type and not lift and turn. I attached a photo. The escutcheons are labeled:

HOT 9 o'clock,
MONITOR 12 o'clock
COLD 2 o'clock
OFF 3 o'clock

The water is indeed off when the handle is turned all the way to the right at 3 o'clock. "Delta" is stamped in script below the handle. Now one would think the knob should turn only 180 degrees. It does not. It will turn almost 360 degrees counterclockwise turning the water on and off then on again just past hot (9 o'clock)!

Okay, I'm oh so curious. Now that the shower in my daughters' bathroom leaks on both its "off" positions, it's time address this. It's not going to make any sense to replace the wrong part with a new wrong part so here I am picking the brains of some plumbing gurus. I know I take the chance you might find this seriously challenging, gut-wrenchingly hilarious, or just too infuriating for words, but I'm asking for help anyways.

IMG_4737.jpg


What do you think the previous owner did to make these whackadoo showers work this way? Lacking an access panel to neither of these showers, I can only assume there were once single-handle/level Delta faucets there (One with a tub). All the other faucets in these mid-90's construction have Delta faucets and appear to be original to the home. The shower and tub surrounds both look newer than the rest of the bathroom fixtures. The previous owners must have found a pair of Delta faucets they liked, installed them. They worked...kinda, but they did not leak and that was good enough! Ta-Da!

What do you think?

TIA!
 

Plumbs

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The parts may not be missing. It's possible they were just installed incorrectly. I just dealt with one of these last week.
Take the handle off. Behind it there should be one or two pieces that serve as the stops for the handle. They can be removed without tools. You just have to set them at the correct position so that it stops on full hot and off only. If you turn the water on and the first position is full hot then you did it wrong.
 
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