Changing a washer!

[Sandi]

Hi all...I've just found this forum and as a do it yourselfer it's an answer to my prayers! My husband and I are fixing up a rather old house, better than 60 years old. The washer needs changing out in the bath tub and I need to know what I need to do to replace it. It's leaking rather badly. What wrenches do I need to change it out? It's obvious I take the handle off but byond that I am stumped. Any help before hubby and me brave this project. We've done so many projects together I'm sure this one will be easy. Thanks in advance!

[Phelps]

Coincidently this is what I did today

First of all you never said if you have separate hot and cold controls or if you have a single control.

IF you have two, like the one I worked on today, sometimes you need a very deep well socket tool to unscrew the valve stem when the large hex shape you get the tool over is inside the wall. If you see both a large hex shape and then a smaller one out in front of it, you want to undo the large one. The smaller one is the packing nut which when it is tight will force packing tight around the stem to keep water from leaking out around the outside of the stem when you turn on the water.

IF your large hex nut is on the outside of the tub surround you can unloosen it with just a wrench, after you shut the main house water off and relieve the pressure into a lower fixture in the house to keep water from weeping down your wall cavity when you remove the valve stem.

Some of the valve stems are made to where there is a seat that is built into a brass cylinder that is screwed onto the end of the valve stem. You first unscrew that cylinder (if you have this type) and then you will see the washer inside, on the end of the stem, that you can replace.

If you just have the kind with the washer exposed out at the end, then just replace it. Take the old washer with you, or look for numbers printed on it such as 1/4, 1/4L, O, 3/8, 1/2, 1/2L, etc., so you know what to get.

The kind of valve stem that has the washer exposed on the end (no cylinder over it) after you take it out of the wall...you also need to use a flashlight and inspect the "seat" in the hole you pulled it out of to make sure there is no cuts or pits in it, as the new washer will not do much good if the seat is bad.

When you remove the valve stem, look to make sure that right under the shoulder of the large hex, or in where it screws in the wall, that there is an intact fiber gasket. If it is wrecked, you need one of these also. It is important to get an identical one of the same ID and OD. This gasket helps prevent water from leaking out the valve stem, in the wall, after you tighten back in the valve stem.

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Note that if that hex shape is back in the wall and you need a deep well socket to undo it, that they sell these 4 or 5 piece deep well sockets that come on a 'stringer' for doing this very task. Often undoing that hex can be hard to do and the puny metal rod they give you with those deep well sockets is inadequate. I just latch either a giant channel locks or better yet, a pipe wrench, over the outside of it to loosen and to tighten.