My kitchen sink faucet developed a problem. Drippage. At first it was only the cold water that dripped. But soon the hot water joined the party. (Of course there is only one faucet head but this is a two-handle faucet with a lever for hot and a lever for cold.) A drip doesn’t sound like a lot of water, but over a period of hours it could fill the sink. Something had to be done. So I did something.
I began my diagnosis by grasping the hot water faucet and gently wiggling it. The drip turned into a continuous stream. Further wiggling would not return the faucet to drip mode. I reached under the sink and turned off the hot water valve.
Having learned nothing from that experience, I grasped the cold water faucet and gave it a little wiggle. The cold water drip turned into a stream. Uh-oh, I’ve done it now. I reached under the sink and turned off the cold water valve.
Now, no water is going to the sink. Time for plan B.
I went to Home Depot and bought two faucet cartridges. Those are valves that control the flow of water through the faucet, from fully on to fully off to anything in between. There are hundreds of faucet designs and no one seems to see much value in using the same cartridges (probably a patent issue), so of course there are hundreds of cartridge designs. I found the correct cartridge but it took about half an hour. The search might have gone faster if I had the brand and model number of the faucet, but alas, that information is lost in the mists of time.
I returned home and installed the new cartridges. When I turned on the water valves under the sink, I was pleased to see the drip was gone. However, even with the faucet handles “wide open” the faucet only managed to produce a trickle of water from both hot and cold.
I removed the new cartridges and inspected them, carefully comparing them to the old cartridges. I could see no difference in the way the old and new cartridges were constructed or in the way they functioned. Nevertheless, I put the new cartridges aside and re-installed the old cartridges. I turned on the water valves under the sink, and found to my surprise that now I had only a trickle of water from the faucet, even with hot and cold valves fully open. The old cartridges had been working except for the drip, and now they weren’t. What is going on?
It was time to call in reinforcements. So I called a friend who lives nearby. He is a Jack-of-all-trades kind of guy, very knowledgeable about almost any kind of any household repair. I explained the situation and he came over to lend a hand.
For the next hour he and I analyzed the situation from every angle. We checked water flow to the valves; it seemed adequate. We verified the valves worked as designed. Yet only a trickle came out of the faucet head. Where was the blockage? My friend and I were mystified. I’m not a plumber and my plumbing expertise goes only so far. It was now time to get professional help.
I knew that a plumber wouldn’t waste his time trying to figure out this kind of problem. He would replace the faucet assembly and be done. I decided that was the best move. But replacing the faucet would involve getting to the faucet from below to remove the nuts holding it to the sink. In order to do that, the drainpipes must be removed from the sink (did I mention there were 2 bowls?) along with p-traps and u-pipes and t-connectors and various other whatnots. It’s not that I can’t do it—I can. But only if I don’t mind spending a week of my life driving back and forth between my kitchen and the plumbing supply store to buy one do-hickey after another. (Me: “How do I…” Store clerk: “Oh, I forgot to tell you, you need to use this special tool…” et cetera, et cetera. If it sounds like I’ve “been there/done that”, it’s because I have. Too many times.)
I was done for the day. The next day would be Sunday and I could shop for a replacement faucet then.
But Sunday morning I slept late. When I arose I made breakfast and chatted with a friend. Then I decided to mow the yard because the remainder of the week was supposed to be rainy, and I don’t mow wet grass. So I mowed the yard. I visited a friend to discuss my plans for the sink and a few other things.
My kitchen ceiling light was getting dim, so when I came home I rummaged in the garage until I found a florescent tube for the fixture. I took the tube into the house. I returned to the garage and carried a stepladder to the kitchen. I replaced the old tube. At last I had success at something; the light fixture was bright once more.
The tiny orifices in my bathroom shower head were starting to get clogged because of the hard water here, so I removed the shower head and soaked it in CLR. Where the CLR didn’t work, I ran a paper clip through the hole. When I finished, the shower head worked much better. Another success, though a simple one. No kitchen faucets were purchased today.
Monday came—a cool, gray day. I needed to wash my laundry because I was running out of everything. So I did that. Elapsed time: about two hours. Then of course, I had to make lunch—tuna salad on whole wheat with dill spears on the side.
After that I worked on a blog post, then I decided to tinker with the faucet cartridges one last time. After that, the clouds let go and rain began falling. I went online to try to select a suitable replacement faucet. The Home Depot website has its own search engine. If you enter “kitchen faucet” and do a search, guess how many different kitchen faucets Home Depot can sell you. The search returned 2,216 results. And that is only kitchen faucets. Just for grins, I searched for bath faucets. That search got 3,145 hits.
Hour by hour, day by day, the week has ticked by. The kitchen faucet still runs slowly. It doesn’t bother me as much as one might think. I’m philosophical about these things. Whenever I repair something in the house, or something on my car—another thing breaks. There is always one more thing to fix. One day I may become fed up and call a plumber. But for now, there’s something else that needs my attention. I suspect there always will be.
