Failure is the Key to Success

This afternoon, I noticed that the shower valve was leaking water out of the casing. It had at some point today leaked under pressure and there was a lot of water sprayed around the area.

When I fitted the shower, I had left a couple of access panels sealed with silcon sealant, so I had to cut these open and try to turn off the gate valves that I had fitted. I was able to turn of the cold, but the hot wouldn’t turn off fully, then the wheel of the valve rounded the brass end of the spindle, so I just used mole grips to turn this off.

The leak was coming from the valve cartridge in the housing. Although the Aqualisa Aquarian value is obsolete, the Aqualisa website still have the spare parts for it. I was able to ring them and order the part for despatch on Monday. The old valve lasted fairly well, it had been in almost daily use for eight years.

I bought a replacement gate valve and will fit it tommorow.