Off the bat: this post has nothing to do with photography, but I see this as a public service announcement, I had no idea these adapters existed until a friend told me about them.

The hardware is known as a “ball joint to 1/2″ MIP” adapter. It should be around $5 at any hardware store.

It’s pretty easy—took me a good 5 minutes, including the photos. You grab the nut at the rear of the existing shower head, and loosen the head (turning the head towards the left). With that unscrewed and filed away for the day you move out, you’ve got a captured nut hanging on the end of the shower arm. You can use teflon tape to ensure a tight seal, I didn’t and it worked out okay. The one thing to be sure of is that the adapter’s gasket is in place, as that will be critical to the seal. Hand tighten the adapter into the nut as tight as you can get it. If you aren’t getting a tight seal, try a little teflon tape on the threads, and retighten. Tools really shouldn’t be necessary to get a watertight seal—the gasket is actually sealing off the water, you just need to jam it hard enough into the ball.

Once you’ve got your adapter on, it’s a simple matter to screw on the new shower head, again hand tighten—there should be a gasket on the showerhead. If it’s leaking you can try teflon tape, or see if you’re missing the gasket.

You’re done—enjoy. And fix the drippy shower head next week.

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