Feeling a bit jaded, I turned up the following Saturday with, as well as my trusty toolkit, a small cardboard box containing a complete mixer cartridge assembly.
Yay!
Nothing can stop me now!
I thought.
Straight in to the bathroom, off with the shower, slice the waterproof sealant, and then
I removed the faceplate
Then I removed the water flow control
Then I removed the outer temperature control arm
Then I removed and dismantled the mixer control gears
Then I cut the waterproof sealant, and removed the backing plate from the wall.
Using the same BluTack and long screwdriver technique, I carefully removed the screws on the brass cover.
Then I worked the mixing cartridge out of its seat and through the tiny gap.
Then I replaced the old mixing cartridge with the bright shiny one that had been delivered a few days ago.
Except.
I couldn’t mount the bloody thing back in to the base unit.
I spent two hours taking it out, making sure everything was good, checking every component was correctly aligned, putting it back in and…
Failing to get the thing to seat sufficiently deeply in to the base unit.
Two.
Hours.
No amount of tea and toast could lift my spirits, and no amount of adjustment, tweaking and fiddling, could get the component sufficiently embedded.
I took the new cartridge in to the kitchen and examined it very carefully.
There was a tiny component, right on the back end of the new mixer cartridge, that rotated.
The same component on the old mixer cartridge didn’t.
Bugger.
It was broken.
I gave up.
Once again I remounted the old cartridge.
It slid straight in to the base plate.
I put everything back together.
Did the Mission Impossible bomb disposal thing with BluTack and a long screwdriver.
Resealed the backing plate.
And felt thoroughly dejected.
The next day I called the Shower Doctor. They agreed to send me a replacement.
Guess what I would be doing the following Saturday?
(to be continued)