My shower has been opening and closing very difficult for the past months. From what I could find about it on the internet, the most likely issue was limestone causing friction on the inside, causing the knobs to turn difficult.
Now I'm not much of a handy man, but I tried at first to just fix it with vinegar which did help for a short period. But I was having difficulties getting inside because I couldn't find how to dismantle the knobs and when I did find out, it turned out one of the screws was bad so I couldn't open it.
At this point I was ready to accept I needed the help of a professional. I looked up online what it would cost to just replace the entire component and was shocked to see the wall fixture alone would cost me 500,- euro's + cost of installation.
So seeing what this would cost, I decided to give it one more attempt and to be honest; there were many moments that I thought I had just made things worse! At a certain point the knob had no more grip and I had opened the shower only to find out it wouldn't close anymore.
But in the end, I managed to dismantle everything just enough to spray vinegar on the inside parts for them to move smoothly again. After getting a new screw for the turning knob (unfortunately I could only buy them in a box of 200 for 4 euro's), the shower seems to be working perfectly again.
I feel very proud of avoiding a very expensive repair! The whole ordeal was a very unpleasant, stressful experience, but looking back at it, I'm very happy I decided to just give it one more try before calling the mechanic!
April 07, 2022 at 04:24AM
