Did a bath remodel early this year. Tiled shower. Plumber installed a drop ear elbow for the shower head arm… PEX coming from the valve, shower arm screwed in per usual. Owner calls me a day ago and says the shower arm seems loose, like you can wave it back and forth a bit, which he noticed when adjusting the shower head.
I suspect a broken ear on the elbow. Haven’t look yet, but there aren’t a lot of possibilities. The elbow is behind tile, of course, and there’s a little Kohler escutcheon over the hole, which is what, maybe 2″ diameter.
Long ago and far away you mentioned guys on your jobs overtightening tub spout nipples and splitting elbows. Any good tricks for fixing the problem I may have without demo’ing tile? I’ll probably use a dremel to enlarge the hole enough to see in there, maybe enough room for a screwdriver…
Yes worst case I can demo a few tiles and cleverly replace them, I have the extras on hand. Just don’t wanna…..
Replies
I've attacked a similar problem from the other side of the wall to save the tile. Granted the other side was a laundry room so texture match was not critical for the patch.
Expanding spray foam can do the trick! One of our mechanics forgot to secure a tub-only faucet in a wall that was tiled on both sides. looking at a very expensive punch-list item, it occured to me that this (then) new product I'd seen - expanding foam - might work. A day later, the faucet was rock-solid.
More likely only a loose screw or two. Those brass fittings aren't very brittle, so they don't often bust. And with the leverage from the shower arm, the drop ears are often pulled loose from the wood backer.
You can open up the hole a bit to get at the screws -- if it's porcelain tile, it's tough, but do-able with a good drill bit. Replace the 1-1/4" Piffin screws (I'll bet) holding the fitting on with #8, 1-1/2" or 2" SS screws. If you're careful, the escutcheon should still cover the whole mess. Otherwise, patch with matching tile grout or consider replacing a tile or two.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
You need to be from south of the Mason Dixon line to get "halp".
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Halp, Halp, Im Faalin
It takes studs to build a house
Yes we had quite a few split drop ears from rookie plumbers & pipe wrenches on trim ;-)
I doubt the drop eared is split or an ear busted off, like Mike said it's probable a screw either loose, broken, or the backing was not the best.
They do make bigger escutcheons but then it looks like a mistake was made on the install.
Take the arm off & inspect the drop ear----- it's pex feeding it, so if both screws are gone it could flop over to one side & then you're screwed.
Expanding foam can fix it, but that's not right & will cause problems when trying to remove the shower arm at a later date.
Depending on how far back the elbow is from the front is going to determine how hard the fix will be.
We have fixed broken eared 90's by using a two hole strap around the riser right at the 90.
Good luck keep us up to date.
Any chance of getting to it from the back side?
"Why do you hurt me when I do bad things to you?" My youngest son to his older brother
I could open the back of the wall up, and I'd be looking at the back of a 2x4 block that the drop ear is (was?) screwed to. If I open up a big enough area then there's the possibility of unfastening the block, bending the whole thing out of the wall a bit, and making the repair. That would be a fairly large patch but certainly do-able.
I'm going to see what I can do from the front.
Spraying in foam is a hack fix IMO.
SIP's are hack panels? Actually, running PEX, or for that matter, any flexible plastic tubing to a drop-ear ell is going to set up a floppy shower-arm sooner or later. And, the foam does not interfere with changing out a shower-arm. A copper riser from faucet to drop-ear should be used if you're looking for long-term rigidity. While I'm not advocating the use of expanding foam as a standard means to fix any problems, or to short-cut a fix in a hack-man-like manner, it sure beats hacking up a tiled wall and creating additional problems.
If you want to secure a faucet or shower riser from the other side after cutting open the wall, you can do so by securing the lines, faucet or drop-ear from the back-side of the support board with strapping and utilizing a bolt/washer/nut to draw tight the 'band'.