how to make a nightmare out of a shower valve cartridge change (and how not to)
Steve – I agree & try to do my shopping close to home but, in my ignorance, I just thought the best way to get a replacement for a 30-year-old unit was to go w/ original mfr – didn’t occur to me to try elsewhere.
Arkady
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
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stevecym | 4 years and 9 months ago
Our Moen Shower faucet began leaking and was getting progressively worse. For me, once i figured out the part number and had the part in hand, this should be a 15 minute repair. so i went on the Moen website and correctly determined that we have a positemp valve and i needed a 1222 cartridge. with this information, i went on the Home Depot website and found that my local Home Depot had 11 in stock. that is five minutes away and i felt like my day was off to a good start. Going to home depot was my first mistake and a few others follow:
mistake 1: shopping at that place where people wear orange aprons:
i went to home depot and there were NO cartridges on the shelf and i scanned the overhead and did not see any Moen parts boxes..
Mistake 2 : ASKING anyone wearing an orange apron ANYTHING:
even after openly condeming the intelligence of people who wear orange aprons on this board, i was in the store and decided to ask the cleark where the cartridges were and why they were not on the shelf (i knew where they were, they had been shoplifted; this is an other reason why i condemn unlicensed contractors because the licensed and insured ones are not going to throw it all away for a $50 shower cartridge; Master Plumber did not steal those cartridges). the orange apron clerk could not find any in the store and came out and told me so, but reassured me by saying: “Ozone Park has 25 of them”. i asked him “did you look that up on the computer or did you call the store and ask them to count them by hand” . with this question he gave me that deer in the head lights look. i was very close to asking him “are you generally this limited or does it only occur after you put that orange apron on and the straps begin to restrict the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain”.
i called the local plumbing supply and asked for a MOEN cartridge. they told me they had one. so i drove over to them. when i got there i reaslized i was making :
Mistake 3: letting the local plumbing supply sell me an after market part (and i told the clerk i wanted a Moen part; would i fly on an airplane with an aftermarket part on it?): i came home and put the cartridge in and i end up with a water hammer in the wall. I proceed to caulk it up anyway thinking there was air or something someplace it did not belong. i then ran the water in the faucet, shower and toilet. as i turned each off i heard the same water hammer. i could not believe it. i thought i did someone wrong and was about to break the wall open next to the shower to touch the pipes, to see if i had loosened a pipe strap or something. i checked the internet and there it is; people buying aftermarket cartridges for the Moen showers report water hammer.
so i did what home depot and the local plumbing supply do not want me to do, i bought the real deal on AMAZON . As much as i hate to say it, if the local suppliers can’t bring their “A” game and Amazon can have it at my door in 18 hours, i suppose that is better than wasiting 3 hours accomplishing nothing.
there are a load of lessons here to pick and choose from – some of which i should have learned a long time ago. for people younger than me and new to all of this, there was a time that the clerks in these situations would have apoligized and possibly directed a customer to a manager to make it right. now they don’t give a toss. part of this is happening because we let it happen and sometimes when we push back against it, they make it out that we are wrong to expect service (the clerks do not want to accept that they are part of the machine and it is up to them to manage up on behalf of the customer; that was the was it was when i was a teen and first began buying parts and materials; they cared); its wrong for us to accept this and it was not that long ago that responsibility was part of the system.
i want to hear Bob Marvin’s comments on all of this.
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years and 9 months ago
I had a rough start to my Monday; this made it slightly better. Thank you for the small bit of relief.
“are you generally this limited or does it only occur after you put that orange apron on and the straps begin to restrict the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain”.
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years and 9 months ago
I had a rough start to my Monday; this made it slightly better. Thank you for the small bit of relief.
“are you generally this limited or does it only occur after you put that orange apron on and the straps begin to restrict the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain”.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
I’m not sure why you want my comments Steve—you know SO much more about home repair than me. I can confirm your misgivings about HD, an big box stores in general (although HD is in a unique category of ineptness). I’m sad to agree with you about the reliability of Amazon. I’d love to support local businesses,, and still often do so, but Amazon involves so much less hassle for so many products. Fortunately much of what they offer IS from small businesses, albeit far off. For example I just bought a beautiful antique-reproduction faucet/shower diverter for my 1899 claw foot tub from a plumbing supply company in Las Vegas, NV. When O required about the availability of replacement ceramic disc cartridges for the faucet(because I know they’re usually proprietary and might be hard to obtain for this imported repro) the seller offered to enclose an extra set gratis. I’d like to see HD, or even a good local hardware store, or plumbing supply, do THAT.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
I’m not sure if O made it clear that the purchase I mentioned from a Las Vey plumbing distributor was VIA Amazon. Years ago, before Amazon, and even the internet, much of what O bought for my 19th Century house was also from far off suppliers, but I had to relyon ads in the )then Brooklyn-based) Old House Journal, or the Brownstone Revival Coalition’s quarterly “Brownstoner” newsletter and snail-mail.
stevecym | 4 years and 9 months ago
bob, i am supposed to know more. i get paid to know more but i am not a plumber so we could both be equally handicapped in that regard. i wanted to hear your comments about old fashioned cusomter service and that foreign word, responsibility (it is impossible to explain the meaning of that word to some people).
for what it is worth, my grandfather was partner in Carle Place Hardware in a little town of the same name on long island in the early to mid 1960’s. as i was growing up, after he sold his half of the business to his partner and after i was old enough to understand, he would tell me things about dealing with customers and having to help the customers and some of the challenges they faced running such a business (shoplifting was as big a problem back then as it is now). the thing was, they rose to the challenges and realized helping people was as big a part of that business as selling the product and collecting the money. it is not entirely lost yet and sometimes i go in a place for a $2.00 part and they treat me like a million dollar account, as they should, but it is our right to demand more and complain when they fail. if the people in orange aprons can’t deal with it, they can always hang them up and go flip burgers or pick fruit.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
Steve,
Leopoldi’s Hardware, on 5th Avenue, between 7th and 8th Streets in Park Slope, provides the kind of service you describe. I’m sure there are other places like that in Brooklyn. I certainly found one like that in Los Vegas, via Amazon.
stevecym | 4 years and 9 months ago
for others out there, this kind of nonsense i went through forces people like me to focus only on what we really know. this happened in my house. if this had happen in a customer’s house, i might or might not have a sympathetic customer (a lot of people see me on here and call me and ask me to do things and i have to tell them i am not qualified; even a do over in my own house is an issue because i too have a “boss”). since we are often judged by the last thing we do and it is not justifiable to bill customers for time even if the suppy chain was the problem, this forces us to turn other things away. people cannot spend three hours looking for parts that have to be mail ordered anyway. if there were better hardware stores and suppliers, maybe there could be more and better handypersons.
bob, leopoldi’s is really good because the owners are there. the two brothers and sister are on site all the time and if they don’t know the answer (they do know the answer) they are going to get it. other good hardware stores, good because they stock a lot of material but may not have an on site owner are the one down on Carrol St in Carrol Gardens and tarzan’s on 7th. someone with inate curiosity (always wondering the why about things) has to be on site and combine that with the desire and ability to do research. ( I have a guy working for me now and i teach him something during the day and he reads about it at night and returns telling me all sorts of things; today, if you tell an employee to read something at night they want you to pay them for it; in your day bob, you were grateful the boss took that interest in you as a person; it was a win-win).
there is a store on Myrtle ave by waverly run by a father and his sons and they do reach a bit when they need to. but when i was first going in there, i needed a grounded plug for a tool. they did not have one and the in house locksmith told me “its only a ground, you don’t need that” (can you imagine? i am running a business and someone on my team could get electrocuted because of this kind of stupity; if i altered a tool this way and handed it to someone working for me,, according to what i was told in OSHA school “not giving someone some thing is a violation and negligent; giving someone the wrong thing is criminal; putting the wrong cord on a tool and handing it to an unknowing employee could cross the line ).
Arkady | 4 years and 9 months ago
I had to replace a 30-year-old Moen 1200 4 years ago & ordered a new one directly from them, waited a few days & it arrived & I replaced it in under an hour. (Not a plumber.)
stevecym | 4 years and 9 months ago
@arkady: I am not a plumber either. changing the part was not the problem. it was the run around i got from the local suppliers. after this, i too will order on line and skip them but it is a shame this world has come to this. i hate to say it, because this is so not what i am about (i believe in supporting local businesses and i am a local business) but since covid began i have been ordering more and more from Amazon – for both my business and home. it seems to me, the people who have it the most together go with the current trends. local retail is bringing this on themselves but we have allowed it.