Need help with my first plumbing job (fixing a shower)

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knownothing

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I have zero experience with plumbing, but as I like doing DIY stuff and am kind of short on cash at the moment, I'm going to try to do a plumbing job myself. There's an unfinished bathroom in my house and the shower in it is a mess.. The handles don't work well, the head really needs to be replaced (but I can't get it unscrewed for the life of me), and there's very little water pressure (I'm hoping that's due to the head being clogged or something and not a bigger issue).. Here are some pictures of it:

knownothing-01.jpg



knownothing-02.jpg


I have a pipe wrench and have been trying without success to get any of the joints to unscrew (the plumbing is very old, and someone also had the great idea of painting over everything..), so I'm thinking the easiest thing would just be to cut the pipes with a hacksaw and replace the whole assembly (I've been reading about soldering copper pipe and it looks like something I could do). Also, notice that the two pipes have pretty deep dents in them in the upper right hand corner of the second picture -- would that affect the water pressure at all?

Any suggestions on the best way to proceed?

Thanks!
 

Terry

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Make sure the valves are open on the wall to the right near the ceiling.

If you can remove the shower head, that may be the problem. It should have been threaded on.
The dents in the copper lines won't affect flow to the shower head. The shower head is already restricted. Soldering should be something you can do. You will need to scrape off the paint for the connections.
 

hj

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valve

The only "joints that will unscrew" are the two unions on top of the valve, and the adapters once you have the unions loosened. The shower head WILL unscrew if you have the proper wrench and a little arm strength.
 
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