Dripping diverter head and stripped screw.

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Eric Klein

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Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
I have a plumbing problem in my shower which is killing me and I can't call a plumber. I live in an apartment building and I told the super about my leaky shower. He said he will get to it, but it will be a while (knowing him probably 2 months) and my bathroom is so damp that mold is starting to form on the walls. My diverter nozzle is constantly leaking hot water. I have a two handle tub and was going to replace the hot water stem or at least the washers on it (probably the whole stem once I have it out). The screw is recessed in the handle and it is stripped and rusted and I tried using ez -out screw removers, wd 40, just about everything but I can't get it out. Is the next step cut the whole thing off with a hacksaw? I also can't turn off any shower water because the turn-off valve is somewhere in the wall and sealed in there. Any help will be hugely appreciated.
 

Reach4

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I would clear what you do with the super, because once you do a certain amount of work, future problems could be blamed on you.

If we presume that is not an issue, and if you can turn off the water for the apartment, I would remove the cold handle and then the stem for the cold side. Take the stem to your plumbing supplier and see if you can get a new hot stem, washers for both sides, and seats for both sides. If you turn the hot and cold in opposite directions, the hot and cold stem are probably different from each other. The seats are important. You will need a wrench for the seat. People commonly use a "seat wrench" which has several 6-sided sizes on one side and 4-sided sizes on the other. The super may lend you one.

Once you know that you can get a new stem, you can feel better about taking a hacksaw to parts. It may not be the stem that you would take a hacksaw to, but the handle. Once the handle was cut away, you could grip the screw with small ViceGrip pliers. Depending, the handle may be more valuable than the stem. In that case you would drill out the screw and put the handle on a new stem.

I am not a plumber, and I am not speaking from much experience.
 

hj

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Use a drill to remove the screw. WHO is going to turn off the water so you can work on it. There are NO "shutoff valves buried in the wall", because there are NO shutoff valves at all/
 
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