DIY Fun

I bought the house we are living in in 2000 when we moved to Pittsburgh. It was a new construction.
Now after 9 years, certain things need to gradually be repaired.
An example was the shower in our bathroom, which had started to drip. The obvious fix for this would be to replace the O-rings.

All the faucets and bathroom fixtures in the house are Moen brand - the reason I mention this is that when installed in a new home construction, Moen provides a warranty for as long as the original home purchaser owns the home.

Therefore I called Moen customer service and described the problem - they mailed me the necessary parts and instructions on how to change the O-rings.
Now it was time to "play plumber" - something I've done before, but which I'm not very good at.
After shutting off the water supply, I took apart the shower assembly (not a trivial task) and replaced the various O-rings on the shower cartridge.
While attempting to re-assemble the shower however, I found that I could not quite get the cartridge pushed in all the way into the receptacle.
I repeated the steps over and over again, however the same frustrating result was obtained.

In desperation, I used my trusted hammer to try to hammer the cartridge back into the assembly. This did not work either, so dejectedly I called Moen's customer service number and talked with a representative. He pointed-out that if there was any residual water in the receptacle it would prevent the cartridge from seating fully. Too bad the instructions did not mention this ...

Once the receptacle was dry, the cartridge body did indeed seat fully and I was able to secure it in place and restore water service.
The shower now worked as it was supposed to and did not drip or leak. All I had to do was install the handle and it would be good as new.

The handle however would not install over the tip of the cartridge. It seems that while trying to force the cartridge into the receptacle, I had managed to deform the tip enough that the precisely machined handle would no longer fit. More calls to the customer service number followed, more replacement parts were sent out and the repair was finally completed but with significant delay.

The lesson from all this -- while DIY may be possible by the average person and might even be perceived as fun by some, I think I need much more practice before I can be counted in the ranks of the latter group.