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Last night as I was replacing the mechanism inside the toilet tank in my vacant apartment I discovered that the bathroom faucet drips. The problem seems to reside in the hot water handle. I can't imagine that this will be difficult to repair--it's really just a question of turning off the water, removing the handle, replacing an O-ring and putting the handle back on, right? Any hidden or not-so-hidden problems I should be aware of?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Oh, yeah, I'll probably do it tonight if replacing the element in the oven doesn't take too long. I just wondered if anyone had any words of wisdom for me, since I've never done it before.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Hmmm. Just be sure to shut off the water upstream of the handles, but I'm sure you already had that covered. Oh, and should it come up, it's not that difficult to bend copper pipes with your hands.
Good luck! Tell us all how it goes.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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It's pretty easy. If you can fix a toilet tank, you can fix a leaky faucet.
The exception: those old-style three-handle shower faucets, in which the center spigot controls whether or not the shower runs. Those can be a bear if the center spigot doesn't quite fit anymore, or if the pipe into which the valve slots has worn down.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I thought it was a 25-cent washer, not an o-ring. At least, that's what it's been in every drippy faucet I've fixed. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Advice: If using a cresent wrench, tighten it often, or else you may round off what ever nut/fixture you are trying to tighten/losen.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Well, it's still dripping. I wasn't able to turn the water off--the knob for doing so was very stiff--I couldn't turn it with my hand at all. I was able to turn it with a pair of pliers, but doing so didn't have any impact whatsoever on the rate of flow. I didn't have time to deal with it last night, but this weekend I'll have to find the valve or whatever in the basement (there's got to be one, right?), turn off the water for the entire side of the house, replace the o-ring or washer or whatever (and I have a box of assorted o-rings and washers, so I'm prepared either way), and then see what I can do about the problem under the sink.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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If you turn off the main water before going on to the sink, run the sink until the water stops to drain out whatever water is left in the pipes.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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If you tie a string to the head of the faucet and let it dangle down all the way into the sink bottom, then the water runs along the string, and you won't have to listen to the drip.
Looks a little silly, but it works.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Noemon, the only warning I have is that if it happens to be the type of faucet in which the spigot part can rotate 360 degrees (most bathroom faucets aren't, so this is probably not a concern), then realize that it does matter which way you install it. In other words, if it's this type faucet you will have 2 options of which side to make hot and which cold. It will fit fine in either of two orientations that are 180 degrees apart. The trouble is, when you get it all hooked up, if you have put it backwards, the handles will turn the wrong direction for on and off. At that point you will have to take it all back apart and redo it the other way. Can you hear the voice of experience talking? I did this with my new kitchen faucet which meant I had to do the whole job twice, awkward angle, difficult tightening, and all.
Probably not a concern for you but just in case.... I really don't want anyone else to have to find that out the hard way.
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Oh, also, the valve to turn off the water to the whole house may be under the house. (I would replace the sink's cutoff valve that didn't work at the same time.) If it is under your house and you have a crawl space, watch out for cave crickets. They won't hurt you but they'll jump at you and they're big and they have long antennae they're creepy. <laughs>
If you can't find a cutoff valve under the house, you can use the one at the street. It will be right next to the curb, usually, and set into the ground under a metal cover. The water meter is here too. If yours leaks like mine did, you may have to bail out the thing with a cup before you can see the valve. There's a special wrench that fits the thing to let you turn it easily, but if you have a large adjustable wrench, it will also work.
Let us know how the job goes.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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The dripping faucet is in my empty apartment--I'm in the process of getting it ready for the new tenant, who is moving in a little more than a week from now. Happily, that means that I don't need to rig up a string (although that is a great suggestion--I had a friend who did that in college, and it's always struck me as enormously clever); there's no one in there to be bothered by the dripping.
Tatiana, the faucet isn't the type that has a spigot capable of movement, but thanks for the warning! I do have other faucets of the type you're talking about, and I'm sure that eventually I'll need to deal with them, so your advice will eventually save me a bit of work.
I've got a basement on both sides (the place was built as a duplex, but in the 50s whoever owned it turned one side into two different units), so I shouldn't have to go spelunking to turn off the water. I know where in the basement my water meter is, and since the two sides were originally mirror images of one another, I assume that I know where the meter is on the other side as well. I'm going to be working on this tomorrow (along with replacing the lower heating element in the oven). I'll let you know how it goes.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Ah. Well, I got distracted with other things, I'm afraid, including an unscheduled nap (I *thought* I was just lying down on the couch to read for a minute after lunch, but my body apparently had other plans), so I'm going to be going over to work on it here in a minute.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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