Source: Title: The shower drips. Identify the valve before you buy the cartridge. \| Mountain Man Plumbing Content revision: 65112c705839ab732e40fcfb50fc097cfc390deadb17b1d3f2df7d0e01356d86 Source modified (WordPress record): 2026-09-19T16:17:38+00:00 Extracted at: 2026-10-25T18:44:09+00:00 Freshness: Stored anonymous publication. Refreshed in the background after content changes and daily; the previous successful version remains available during refresh. See extracted-at time. Live inventory requires its tool. ## On this page - [What's actually wrong with it]() - [← DIY plumbing tips]() MOUNTAIN MAN PLUMBING / DIY Shower / Tub Plumbing # The shower drips. Identify the valve before you buy the cartridge. Six different faults all look like one drip, and the wrong cartridge fixes none of them. Figure out which one you have, identify your valve while the water is still on, and buy the part once. Mountain Man Plumbing · Updated Sep 19, 2026 The shower drips. Identify the valve before you buy the cartridge. A dripping shower is usually a cheap part and an afternoon of work. It turns expensive when the part gets bought before the problem gets identified — and that's easy to do, because six different faults all show up as what looks like one drip. So do it in this order: work out which fault you've actually got, identify your valve while the water is still on, then buy the part. This guide goes in that order. **Right now:** a drip can wait. Water at the trim plate, inside the wall, or on the ceiling below is a leak rather than a drip, and that cannot. Either way, find out whether the valve has a shutoff of its own before you start. ### What's actually wrong with it The faults that all get described as "my shower drips." Drips, or won't shut off **35%** Temperature wrong or wandering **24%** Diverter or wrong outlet **13%** Couldn't get the old part out **13%** Weak or no flow **10%** Only about a third of these are the classic drip, so don't assume yours is. Find your symptom in the table, then jump to that section. ## Six problems look like one drip. | What you're seeing | What it usually is | Where to go | | --- | --- | --- | | Water runs from the head or spout with the handle off | The valve isn't shutting off — the cartridge, or the rubber seats under it | Identifying the valve | | Temperature wanders, or scalds when someone runs a sink | The pressure-balancing spool, not the shut-off parts | The scalding section | | Warm, but never properly hot | The limit stop. Usually free to fix | Warm but never hot | | Showerhead dribbles while the tub spout runs | The drop pipe, the valve's orientation, or house pressure | When the tub runs | | A stall drips a while after shutoff, then stops by itself | Nothing. The head and arm are draining | No repair needed | | Water at the trim plate, inside the wall, or on the ceiling below | A leak, not a drip. Different urgency | Stop — read the last section | ## Don't buy the part yet. ### The most expensive mistake in this repair What happens when the part goes in the cart before the diagnosis is done. fitted a new part before diagnosing **40%** New part made no difference **13%** Four in ten people go and fit something before they know what failed, and one in eight of those end up back where they started with a receipt to show for it. It almost always goes one of three ways: the part was for a different valve, the part was right but wasn't the thing that failed, or debris got into the valve while the water was off. When a new part doesn't fix it, **put the old part back in. If the fault is identical, the new part was never the cause.** Do that before you buy a second one — if nothing changes, stop shopping and start looking for a blockage or a different component. ## Read the valve before you shut the water off. There is no universal shower cartridge. Do the identifying while the house still has water — plenty of older tub/shower valves have no shutoff of their own, so the repair takes down the whole house. Take it apart first, find out the part has to be ordered, and you've turned a dripping shower into a weekend without water. ### Two brands cover most bathrooms Among people who knew, or could find, their brand. Moen **32%** Delta **26%** Kohler **12%** Price Pfister **9%** Grohe **9%** American Standard **7%** Symmons, Mixet, Gerber, Valley, Sterling **13%** Moen and Delta are well over half of all of them. Learn to recognize those two and you've covered most bathrooms — and both label themselves if you look. Delta embosses the series on the trim plate below the handle — *1300/1400 Series*, for example — and says [the series alone is normally enough to identify the cartridge](). Moen frequently stamps its name on the trim. Pull the handle and the trim plate and look for markings on the valve body itself before you decide yours is a no-name. Original shower handles before repair on a Midvale shower plumbing job Start here. The trim and handle shape narrow it down before anything comes apart. Chrome oval shower escutcheon with the green temperature control visible at center during a Grohe service in Sandy, Utah Trim plate off. Markings live on the plate's back and on the valve body itself. Two brand-specific traps. Moen's single-handle cartridges mostly sit in the 1200 series, but [Moen warns that a faucet made after 2009 may take a 1255 rather than the 1225 you're looking at](). And on Delta, the fix for a dripping 1300/1400 Monitor is the cartridge assembly, while the seats-and-springs kit that gets recommended for every Delta actually belongs to [ball-type and two-handle faucets and only some cartridge valves](). Check the parts diagram for your valve. On some designs the rubber seats sit in the body underneath the cartridge, and a new cartridge alone will keep right on dripping. If the markings are gone, photograph the valve body, the cartridge and the handle and send them to the manufacturer — Delta will identify a discontinued valve from photos. And before you pay for anything: Moen's [lifetime limited warranty]() supplies the parts to fix a leak or drip free of charge to the original purchaser who still owns the home, with the receipt. Labor is on you. It's still worth the call. ## Somebody flushes and your shower goes scalding. About a quarter of shower valve complaints are temperature, not dripping — and temperature is a different part. A single-handle valve does two jobs. It mixes hot and cold and shuts them off, which is the bit that drips. It also holds your temperature steady when someone flushes a toilet or starts the dishwasher, and that job belongs to a separate piece inside called the pressure-balancing spool. On many valves the spool is built into the cartridge. On others it's its own part, and you can replace it by itself for a lot less money. - **The handle stops tracking the temperature.** Back it off a little and nothing changes; back it off a lot and it goes cold. It didn't used to behave that way. - **Someone runs a sink and your shower goes scalding — and stays hot after they stop.** The spool is supposed to move back. It isn't. - **Weak flow at every handle position, or only on hot.** A pressure-balancing valve is built to choke down when one side loses pressure. A closed stop, a plugged inlet screen or a restricted hot line makes it strangle everything, and it looks exactly like a dead valve. That last one catches people right after a repair. If there are small stops behind the trim plate, **both** have to be open, or the valve will barely pass water no matter which cartridge you fit. Hand holding broken green plastic temperature plunger from a Grohe shower valve in Sandy, Utah A temperature control that failed. New shut-off parts would not have touched this. Black valve housing opened on a brass Grohe body during a shower repair in Sandy, Utah The same valve opened up. The mixing parts and the temperature parts are separate. ## Warm but never hot is often a free fix. If the shower is lukewarm at full hot while the bathroom sink runs properly hot, you probably don't need a part. You need the rotational limit stop — the toothed collar under the handle that caps how far toward hot the valve can turn. It's a different thing from pressure balancing, which is where the confusion starts. Pressure balancing is automatic and protects you from a sudden hot shot. The limit stop is a fixed ceiling you set by hand. A valve can have both, and adjusting one does nothing for the other. [Delta's method]() is representative: run the water until hot and cold are both at their extremes, turn the handle to full hot, and hold a thermometer in a plastic tumbler in the stream. Then move the collar one tooth and measure again. Before you start turning anything, know this, because we couldn't reconcile it and neither should you: **Delta's printed manual and Delta's own support article give opposite directions for the 13/14 series.** | Source | To make a 1300/1400 cooler | Change per tooth | | --- | --- | --- | | 13/14 Series manual (BT13210) | Turn the limit stop **clockwise** | 4–16°F | | Delta online support article | Turn the limit stop **counterclockwise** | about 6°F | | 17/18 Series — both sources agree | Turn the limit stop **clockwise** | 2–6°F | So don't work from a remembered direction, and don't trust a video. The collar has *hotter* and *colder* arrows molded into it. Move one tooth, put the handle back on, and measure. A comfortable shower is usually 90–110°F. **120°F is the ceiling, not a target.** Industry standard caps the water leaving the valve at 120°F and local code may be lower. Set it by measuring, not by feel, and remember there may be a child or an older adult using that shower who can't react fast enough to a mistake. One for the calendar: Delta notes the limit stop **may need resetting seasonally**, because incoming cold water is colder in winter. That's not a small effect along the Wasatch Front. A setting that's perfect in July can leave you short in January. If your shower temperature drifts with the seasons and nothing else changed, the valve isn't failing. ## When the tub runs and the showerhead dribbles. This one gets blamed on a worn valve constantly, and it's about one in eight shower complaints. Turn on the tub and watch: if flow from the showerhead is worst with the handle near the middle and falls off toward either extreme, the valve isn't your problem. More water is trying to reach the spout than the drop pipe can carry, so the excess goes up. The usual cause is the pipe. [Delta's rough-in instructions]() are unusually specific: the pipe between the valve body and the tub spout must be at least 1/2" copper or 1/2" iron pipe, in a straight drop of no less than 8" and no more than 18" from valve centerline to spout centerline, with only one 90° elbow. And in bold — *do not use PEX tubing for tub spout drop.* PEX with insert fittings has a smaller bore than it looks, which is exactly the restriction that pushes water up to the head. The other two causes are a valve installed upside down, and house pressure high enough to overwhelm a correctly built drop. Check your static pressure before opening a wall — it's a gauge on a hose bib and five minutes. Our [water pressure testing guide]() covers what the reading should be. None of these three is a parts-counter fix, which is worth knowing before you buy anything. ## Getting the old one out is the real job. One in eight people stuck on this repair aren't confused about the diagnosis. They have the right part in hand and can't extract the old one. The difficulty has nothing to do with the price of the part. Salt Lake City's water is hard — the city's [annual water quality report]() puts total hardness around 184 ppm, roughly 8 to 12 grains per gallon depending on source, and notes the summer well supply is harder still. Twenty or thirty years of that cements a cartridge into a valve body. A plastic pull-out cartridge that comes when you pull it is genuinely easy. A brass one that's been in since the Carter administration is a different repair, and the failure is specific: the puller grips the cartridge's brass ears, the ears snap off, and the body stays in the wall with nothing left to grab. You've gone from a part you could buy to an extraction, or an opened wall. ![failed shower valve stems removed during a completed shower repair in Midvale, Utah]() Stems that came out. Note the scale — that's what makes them seize. ![Shower wall cut open to reach and replace a shower valve during a repair in Sandy, Utah]() And what it looks like when the part wins. This is the outcome the next few paragraphs are trying to help you avoid. Things that improve the odds, in order: 1. **Identify it first and buy the right puller.** The plastic tool packed in the cartridge box is often not up to an old one. 2. **Soften the scale.** Vinegar in the valve body, given time to work, loosens calcium. 3. **Break the bond before you pull hard.** Light taps on the valve housing with a rubber mallet do more than brute force on the puller — and force is what snaps the ears. 4. **Work it, don't yank it.** Rocking and turning beats a single heroic pull. **Stop if the ears break off, the valve body shifts in the wall, or you need more force than the part can take.** A cartridge snapped off inside the valve, or a valve that moves and loads the pipe behind it, is past the point where more effort is cheaper. Send someone a photo before the wall becomes part of the job. ## What goes wrong after the water comes back on. **Debris.** Shutting the main off and on dislodges scale that's sat undisturbed for years, and it travels to whatever you just opened. Symptom: brand-new cartridge, almost no flow. Delta builds the fix into its own trim instructions — before fitting the cartridge, take the bonnet off, prepare for spray, and run the supplies about thirty seconds to purge the line. If you skipped that and flow is bad, pull the cartridge and flush into the tub. White flecks that won't dissolve in vinegar are a particular case: those are pieces of a disintegrating water heater dip tube rather than lime. That failure traces to tubes built between August 1993 and October 1996, so it goes with a water heater of that vintage — not with your shower. **Turning the water on too fast.** Open the main slowly and leave a faucet open while you do. The slug of air and water hitting a closed system is a real pressure spike, and it finds weak solder joints that have been quietly holding for decades. Then check your work while the wall is still accessible: run it hot, cold and mid-range, flush a toilet while it runs, and look at the valve — not just the spout — with a flashlight and a dry hand. ## Where to hand it over. These are the points where continuing costs more than stopping. - The cartridge has broken off inside the valve body. - There's no working shutoff, or the one you found won't close. - The valve body is leaking, cracked, or moves when you work on it. - The fix needs soldering inside a finished wall. - Water is getting behind the tile or into the ceiling below. - It's a discontinued brand with no parts. Valley, Mixet and Symmons are about one valve in eleven and common in valley homes from the 1970s and 80s — replacement usually means a new valve, not a new cartridge. A photo of the valve body and a description of the symptom will get you a real answer faster than another trip to the store. [How shower valve repair and replacement works ↗]() · [Tub spouts and diverters ↗]() · [All shower and tub plumbing ↗]() Two of ours if you like seeing the inside of a valve: a [Grohe thermostatic teardown in Sandy]() and a [shower valve replacement in Holladay](). Where the percentages come from: 3,093 shower valve questions homeowners posted to public plumbing forums, sorted by what each person described. They show how often each problem comes up among people seeking help, not how often it happens in every house, and because they count what people wrote down, each figure is a floor. Photographs are Mountain Man Plumbing jobs in Sandy, Midvale and Salt Lake City. Technical sources: Delta Faucet support articles and 13/14, 17 Series and MultiChoice rough-in documentation; Moen cartridge replacement guidance and lifetime limited warranty; Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities Water Quality Report. Every procedure and figure here was checked against current manufacturer documentation. Related repair guides [Shower & tub plumbing ↗]() YOU CAN HAND IT OVER FROM HERE. ## Need a second set of eyes? Tell us what happened and what you’ve tried. - [Text a photo ↗]() - [Book a visit ↗]() ## Another useful thing to know. [All DIY tips ↗]() ![Water comes up out of the washing machine standpipe. Before you snake it, find out if the drain can breathe.]() DIY TIP / 01 Laundry Plumbing ### [Water comes up out of the washing machine standpipe. Before you snake it, find out if the drain can breathe.]() A washing machine doesn't drain, it pumps, and a top-loader pushes up to 17 gallons a minute into a pipe that has to take every bit of it. 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