Moen 1222 cartridge issues

[Swope1221]

Hi everyone. I am posting here because I have been having ongoing issues with my shower and Moen 1222 cartridges. I'll try to keep it brief, we remodeled our bathroom about 16 years ago and installed a Moen Adler shower valve. The shower worked fine till about 3 years ago when my son and friend were messing around, and literally the stem broke off the cartridge. I got the cartridge out and replaced it and everything worked fine, for about a year.

After a year I was getting either all hot, or cold, I don't remember which, so I replaced the cartridge again. Fast forward 1 year later, same problem, replaced again, this time I bought the 1222 hd, the all brass version. And here we are now today, same problem.

Is there something I am doing wrong when installing these cartridges that is causing them to fail so prematurely? When I replaced the previous one, I looked at the old cartridge and I could see inner stem was blocking one of the holes for the water to enter the cartridge, and no matter how I tried to rotate the stem to simulate turning on the shower and adjusting the temp, the hole never became unblocked.

It is a shower/bath combo with the diverter on the tub spout.

If there is any other information that might help let me know. It seems at this point I am going to have to replace the cartridge again, but I am hoping I can do it and it lasts longer than a year.

Thanks in advance.
Eric

 

[Terry]

This isn't normal. How old is your water heater? I wonder if you're getting sediment in the cartridge.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Swope1221]

Hi Terry, thanks for your reply. We have a well, and hard water. We get little pieces of sediment at our faucets, as when I take the aerators off and check, there are little teeny tiny bits. What gets me is that the original that was preinstalled in the valve when I bought it, lasted as long as it did, about 14 years, and our other bathroom which was remodeled the next year, and has the same moen adler model, hasn't had a problem either. This yearly replacing only started once I had to remove the original and put in another one, which is why I thought I am doing something wrong. I can pretty reliably predict that if I go out and get a new cartridge, and replace it now it would work right out of the gate.

I thought of calling a plumber and having them do it, almost for peace of mind, but not sure if it will make a difference. It just seem like I shouldn't have to keep buying new cartridges on a yearly basis.