Shower Valve Repair, Pans and Drains in Gainesville, FL

You turn the handle and the temperature swings. Or it drips all night and you can hear it from the hallway. Or the handle has gone so stiff you are half expecting it to snap off in your hand.

Rather text? Send a photo of the problem to 352-377-9447 and we’ll tell you what it sounds like.

Licensed Florida Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

Locally owned, owner on the job. Two years parts and labor warranty on everything we install. Our warranty

Flat fee to come out and diagnose it.

$ 69

Maximum shower outlet temperature required by Florida code.

120 °F

How long a new shower pan is flood tested before tile goes on.

24 hrs

Shower valve repair in Gainesville, FL usually comes down to one of three things: a worn cartridge, a failed valve body, or a leak behind the wall. First Choice Plumbing charges a flat $69 to come out, diagnoses which one it is, and fixes the plumbing side the same visit where possible. Two year parts and labor warranty. Call (352) 377-9447.

What Is Actually Wrong With Your Shower?

It drips after you shut it off.

That is almost always the cartridge, not the valve. Rubber seals and ceramic discs wear, and our water here is moderately hard at roughly 8 grains per gallon on the Gainesville system, so scale builds on the sealing surfaces and they stop sealing. On most major brands the cartridge pulls out through the trim opening. No tile comes off, no wall gets opened, and you are back in business in under an hour.

The temperature swings when a toilet flushes.

That is a pressure balancing valve that has lost its ability to balance, or an older two handle setup that never had that protection to begin with. Current Florida code requires shower valves to be balanced pressure, thermostatic, or a combination of both, with the high limit set so the water cannot exceed 120 degrees. If your shower still scalds you when somebody runs a faucet, it is not just annoying, it is behind code.

The handle is stiff or grinds.

Scale again, usually. Forcing a stiff handle is how people snap a stem off inside the valve and turn a $69 visit into an open wall. If it takes two hands, stop using it and call.

There is a stain on the ceiling or a soft spot on the floor outside the shower.

This one is not a fixture problem. Water is getting past the pan, the drain connection, or the valve body inside the wall. Do not let anyone start pulling tile until the leak has actually been located. That is our flagship service and we do it with equipment, not guesswork.

The shower drains slowly but nothing else does.

The valve and the pan are fine. It is hair and soap scum in the trap or the branch line, and on older Gainesville homes it can be scale built up inside a cast iron drain. That is a drain job, not a shower job, and we will tell you so instead of quoting you a new valve.

If you see a ceiling stain under a second floor shower, stop using that shower and call. Every extra day of running it is more drywall and more framing.

What Does Shower Valve Repair Cost in Gainesville?

It is a flat $69 for us to come out, look at it, and tell you what it needs. That fee is waived on larger jobs. We publish that number because you should be able to find out what a plumber charges without calling four of them, and you will notice most of the sites you just clicked through did not publish anything at all.

Past that, the price depends on which of the three repairs you actually have. A cartridge is the small one. A valve body replacement depends almost entirely on how we get to it, which is why we check the back of the wall first. A failed pan is a project, and it involves a tile contractor. Whatever it is, you get the full number before we start, not after, and nothing gets added without you agreeing to it first.

Bigger job than you were planning on? We finance through Wisetack on jobs starting around $500. Financing

The Guy Whose Name Is on the License

First Choice Plumbing is Will Harrod, Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748. It is a locally owned shop: Will handles estimating and the bigger work, Mike runs the service calls, and Kim answers the phone and dispatches the trucks. Will still shows up on jobs. That is not a marketing line, it is how the company is built. When the owner is the one standing in your bathroom, nobody has to guess who is accountable for the work.

Cartridge, Valve Body, or Something Behind the Wall?

Three different repairs hide behind the same complaint. Knowing which one you have is most of the battle, and it is the difference between an hour of work and a day of it.

The cartridge. This is the part inside the valve that mixes hot and cold and shuts the water off. It wears out. It is also the answer to the large majority of shower complaints: drips, temperature drift, a handle that will not fully close. Moen, Delta, Kohler and the other major brands still make replacement cartridges for valves that are decades old, so a good valve body with a bad cartridge is a straightforward fix.

The valve body. This is the brass housing soldered or threaded into the pipes inside the wall. You replace it when the body itself is corroded or cracked, when the threads are gone, when a stem has snapped off inside it, or when you are upgrading from an old two handle setup to a single handle pressure balancing valve to bring the shower up to current code. That means opening the wall, and that is where an honest conversation about tile has to happen.

Something behind the wall. Sometimes the valve is fine and the leak is in the copper or CPVC feeding it, in the drain connection under the pan, or in a line running through the slab nearby. Chasing that by opening walls at random is how people end up with three holes and a wet ceiling. We locate it first. Slab leak detection

See how our leak detection works, and what the find-it-or-free guarantee covers

Can You Replace a Shower Valve Without Tearing Out the Tile?

Very often, yes. Here is the order we actually try, cheapest first.

One: swap the cartridge. If the valve body is sound, the cartridge comes out through the trim opening you already have. Nothing gets cut. This handles most drips, most temperature problems and most stiff handles.

Two: go in from behind. If the body has to come out, the first thing we check is what is on the other side of that wall. A closet, a hallway, a linen cabinet, a garage. If we can reach the valve from the back, we cut a neat opening in drywall instead of touching a single tile. A professional drywall contractor patches every hole we cut. We do not paint, and we will say so up front rather than surprise you with it.

Three: through the tile, as a last resort. Sometimes the shower backs onto an exterior wall and there is no other way in. When that happens we cut the smallest opening the job allows, and an oversized escutcheon or remodel plate can hide a lot of it. If tile has to be replaced, that goes to our tile partner, and we will tell you that before we start, not after.

One more honest note. If your valve is a good brand, less than fifteen or so years old, and it is only dripping, do not let anyone talk you into a full valve replacement. Ask for a cartridge first.

Where Our Work Stops and the Tile Starts

We are plumbers, not a general contractor, and being straight about that saves everybody money and arguments.

What we do: the shower valve and trim, the rough-in behind the wall, the supply lines, the shower drain and its trap, the pan drain assembly and liner, the flood test, moving a drain or a valve when a layout changes, and every bit of the water that is supposed to stay inside a pipe.

What we bring in a tile contractor for: the tile, the grout, the waterproofing membrane over the tile side of the assembly, the glass, and the finish work. We coordinate the schedule so the pan is set and tested before anybody starts setting tile, which is the sequence that keeps you from paying for the same shower twice.

What we do not do at all: paint. Somebody patches, you paint or you hire a painter.

If you are planning a full bathroom project, the plumbing scope gets priced on its own so you can see exactly what you are paying us for. Bathroom remodel plumbing

Shower Pans and Why They Leak

The pan is the waterproof tray under your shower floor. On a tiled shower it is not the tile. Tile and grout are not waterproof and were never meant to be. Water gets through grout on purpose, hits the liner or the bonded membrane underneath, and runs to weep holes in the drain that carry it away. When a shower leaks into the room below, the pan assembly is usually what failed.

Three things cause most pan failures, and all three are build errors rather than bad luck.

No pre-slope. The bed under the liner has to slope to the drain at a quarter inch per foot, same as the tile above it. When somebody pours a flat bed and slopes only the tile, water sits on the liner and never reaches the weep holes. It sits there for years, and eventually it finds an edge.

Blocked weep holes. Those small openings in the drain’s clamping ring are the whole drainage plan for the liner. Pack mortar over them and the pan becomes a bathtub with no drain.

A punctured or badly folded liner. Corners are where liners fail. So are the spots where somebody set a screw through one.

How you can tell: a stain or soft spot in the ceiling or floor just outside the shower, loose or hollow sounding tile at the base, a musty smell in the room below, or a water bill that climbed with no explanation. If the shower is on a slab, you may see a warm damp patch on the floor nearby instead. Slab leak detection

When we set a pan, it gets a proper pre-slope, protected weep holes, and a flood test that holds water for a full 24 hours before anyone is allowed to set tile on top of it. That test costs a day. Skipping it costs a bathroom.

Shower Drains, Traps and What Goes Wrong Down There

Size matters and it is not optional. A shower drain is a two inch drain. A shower that was tied into a smaller line, which happens in older remodels and in some mobile home conversions, will pond around your feet no matter how clean the trap is. If yours pools every time, that is worth checking before you spend money on anything else.

Old drains in old houses. A lot of Gainesville’s housing stock went up in the sixties and seventies, and those homes almost always have cast iron drains. Cast iron scales and narrows from the inside as it ages, so a shower that drains a little slower every year is often not clogged, it is closing up. Clearing it buys time. Descaling opens it back up, and lining it can save the whole line without digging up the house. Drain descaling

Linear drains and curbless showers. If you want a linear drain or a curbless walk-in, the drain location and the slope have to be planned before the framing is closed, not after. Bring us in early on that one. It is a much easier conversation before the wall goes up.

Why Gainesville Showers Fail Sooner Than They Should

Four local reasons, and they stack.

The water is hard enough to matter.

GRU's water comes out of the Floridan Aquifer and runs around 140 milligrams per liter as calcium carbonate, which is roughly 8 grains per gallon. That is moderately hard. It is perfectly safe to drink and it is unkind to the small moving parts inside a shower valve. Scale is why cartridges wear out early, why handles get stiff, and why a shower head that used to spray now dribbles. If you are tired of replacing the same parts, a softener is worth pricing. Water softeners.

Well water is a different animal.

Out toward Hawthorne, Melrose, Micanopy and northern Marion County, most homes are on private wells, and our limestone geology puts iron and sulfur into the water. Iron stains everything it touches and eats seals. If your shower valve fails every few years and the tile is orange, treat the water first. Well water filtration.

Old pipe behind new tile.

Homes built before 1975 usually have cast iron drains, and homes built or repiped between 1978 and 1995 may have polybutylene supply lines that fail at the fittings. Opening a shower wall is the one time you can see what is in there. If we find bad pipe, you will hear about it while the wall is open, when it is cheap, not two years later. Pipe repair.

Permits are real here.

Altering, replacing or relocating plumbing generally requires a permit, and which office issues it depends on whether you are inside Gainesville city limits or in unincorporated Alachua County. We handle that. It is not something you should be figuring out on a Saturday.

The Difference Is in the Details

What Matters	First Choice Plumbing	Typical Installer / Big-Name Brand
What it costs to get a diagnosis	Flat $69, published on the website, waived on larger jobs	"Free estimate" that turns into a trip charge, or no number published anywhere
Cartridge first, or valve first	We try the cartridge before we quote a valve, and we say so out loud	Quotes the full valve replacement because it is the bigger ticket
Getting to the valve	We check the back side of the wall before we ever touch tile	Opens the tile wall because it is faster for the crew
Holes we cut	A professional drywall contractor patches every hole we cut	Leaves the hole and tells you to call somebody
Tile	We say up front that tile goes to a tile contractor and we coordinate the schedule	Vague about scope until the tile is already off the wall
New shower pans	Pre-sloped bed, protected weep holes, and a 24 hour flood test before tile goes on	Tile set on an untested pan, and nobody finds out for two years
Warranty	Two years parts and labor from us, plus the manufacturer warranty on top	Ninety days on labor is common, then you are on your own
Who shows up	A small local crew. The owner is a licensed plumbing contractor and still runs estimates himself	Whichever tech the dispatch board assigns, often subcontracted

Licensed Florida plumbing contractor CFC1430748. Flat $69 to come out. Two years parts and labor on everything we install.

What to Expect When You Call

Call or book online.

Kim answers the phone and puts you into a route that makes sense, so you are not waiting on a truck coming from the other side of the county. Tell her whether it drips, swings temperature, or whether you are seeing water somewhere it should not be. It changes what we bring.

Flat $69, and a straight answer.

We come out, find the actual problem, and give you the number before anything gets touched. If it is a cartridge, that is what you pay for. If the valve body is gone or the pan has failed, you get a real price and a real explanation of what has to come apart, and you decide.

Fixed, tested, and cleaned up.

Valve set and pressure tested. Pan flood tested for 24 hours before any tile goes near it. Every hole we cut gets professionally patched. Two years of parts and labor behind our work.

Licensed Florida Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

First Choice Plumbing is Will Harrod, Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748.

Flat $69 to come out

Waived on larger jobs. You get the full number before we start, not after.

Two year parts and labor warranty

On everything we install, plus the manufacturer warranty on top.

We patch every hole we cut

A professional drywall contractor patches every hole we cut. We do not paint, and we say so up front.

Where We Work

We are based in Hawthorne and we run Gainesville and the whole of Alachua County every week, plus the rural counties around it where the wells are. Gainesville, Hawthorne, Alachua, Newberry, Archer, Jonesville, High Springs, Micanopy, Waldo, Melrose, Keystone Heights, Interlachen, Starke, Williston, and the small towns in between across Alachua, Putnam, Bradford, Union, Clay, Levy and northern Marion counties. We do this work in commercial buildings too, from apartment blocks to hotels. Commercial plumbing Not sure if you are in range? Call and ask. (352) 377-9447

Shower Questions We Get Every Week

How do I know if my shower valve is bad?

The usual signs are a drip that keeps going after you shut the handle off, water that swings hot and cold when a toilet flushes or a washer fills, a handle that is stiff or grinds, or a shower that will not fully shut off. Most of those are a worn cartridge inside a perfectly good valve, not a dead valve. A bad valve body shows up as corrosion, a snapped stem, or a leak inside the wall.

Can you replace a shower valve without removing tile?

Often, yes. If only the cartridge needs to come out, it pulls through the trim opening and no tile is touched. If the valve body has to be replaced, the first thing we check is whether the back of that wall is reachable from a closet, hallway or garage, because then we cut drywall instead of tile. Only when there is no other access does tile have to come off.

How much does it cost to replace a shower cartridge?

It is a flat $69 for us to come out and diagnose it, waived on larger jobs. The repair cost after that depends on the brand and the part, and you get the full number before any work starts. We will always try the cartridge before quoting a full valve replacement if the valve body is sound.

Why does my shower go cold when someone flushes the toilet?

Your valve is not balancing pressure. Either it is an older two handle setup that never had that protection, or the pressure balancing spool in a newer valve has scaled up and stopped moving. Florida code requires shower valves to be balanced pressure, thermostatic or a combination of the two, with the maximum outlet temperature limited to 120 degrees, so this is a safety issue as much as a comfort one.

How do I know if my shower pan is leaking?

Look for a stain or a soft spot on the ceiling or floor just outside the shower, loose or hollow sounding tile along the base, a musty smell in the room below, or a water bill that jumped with no explanation. On a slab home you may find a warm damp patch on the floor near the bathroom instead. Do not let anyone pull tile before the leak is actually located.

Why is my shower handle so hard to turn?

Mineral scale on the cartridge, almost always. Gainesville's water runs around 8 grains per gallon, which is moderately hard, and that scale builds on the moving parts inside the valve. Forcing a stiff handle is how people snap the stem off inside the valve, which turns a simple part swap into opening the wall. If it takes two hands, stop and call.

Does a shower drain have to be 2 inch?

Yes. A shower needs a two inch drain. Showers that were tied into a smaller line during an older remodel will pond water around your feet no matter how clean the trap is, and no amount of snaking fixes that. If yours pools every single time, the pipe size is worth checking before you spend money on anything else.

Do you do the tile too?

No. We are plumbers, so we do the valve, the rough-in, the drain, the pan assembly and the flood test. Tile, grout and glass go to a tile contractor we bring in and coordinate with. We tell people that up front, because finding out mid-project is how remodels go sideways. Bathroom remodel plumbing

Get a straight answer on your shower.

Flat $69 to come out, the cheapest honest fix tried first, and two years of parts and labor behind whatever we install. Licensed, local, and owner run out of Hawthorne.

Leaks don’t stand a chance.

Tell us what's going on and we'll take it from there

You get a real person, a $69 visit, a flat price before we start, and a company that patches what it cuts and answers the phone when you call back. If a smaller fix is the right call, we’ll tell you that too.

First Choice Plumbing is a locally owned, owner led plumbing company working Gainesville, Hawthorne and Greater Alachua County. Leak detection, repipes, water heaters, drains, trenchless lining, well water filtration and septic. We find it, we fix it, we guarantee it.

Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

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