That said, I got a call from my Mom informing me that one of the rent houses had a leak in the shower. Of course, I asked, "How bad is it?" "Not too bad," she said, "I think that it's just dripping." I thought to myself, "No problem. I'll just go over there and replace the valve stems." Yeah, right...
I got there and removed the handles, So far, so good. Then I removed one of the stems and the diverter; no problem. The last stem...well, let's just say that's where the trouble started. As it turns out, the brilliant person installing the stem before me cross threaded the stem. Who knows how long it has been leaking. The stem did not want to some out. What could I do? Not much; I know. So....I forced it. Nice! It came out, all of it, including all of the insides of the valve body...in pieces! Great!
But, that's not the half of it. After I cut into the closet behind the shower valve to remove it, I noticed the dry wall didn't look so good. A quick nick from the saw I used to remove the valve body and a whole section of wall crumbled! The entire wall from the valves down to the tub was rotten. I have never seen dry wall crumble like that. It simply fell off the wall leaving the tile held together by the grout! Now, I had a dry wall replacement, tile replacement and shower replacement! Why?!?! What does it mean?!?!?
OK, five trips to Arlington, $240 dollars later and one sore body, it is fixed. Check out the picture for the "after" state (sorry, the tub wasn't final cleaned when I took the pic). Imagine a hole through the wall into the closet as wide as the tub and as tall as the valves. Yep, it was big. Please, don't ever tell me you have a small leak. If you do, I just might save you the trouble and tell you to call a contractor! A plumber might not do it!
