You are walking to your kitchen for a morning coffee and find the faucet dripping. How annoying it would be! Moreover, at the end of the month, it'll shock you with the additional water bill.
Your kitchen faucet is probably the most used thing in your kitchen. Just think how much pressure it goes through every day! So it’s normal that it sometimes goes out of function.
However, your kitchen faucet may have one handle or two. There’s a slight difference between their processes of fixing where the sink is common or different. In this article, we are going to describe the process to fix a single-handle kitchen faucet.
Necessary Equipment:
● Towel
● Allen wrench
● Screwdriver
● Channel-lock pliers
● Tape
● Plumbers grease
Step 1: Determine which type of faucet you have in your kitchen.
A single handle kitchen faucet can be of different types. All of them have only one swiveling arm at the center to supply both hot and cold water. So you can’t differentiate them by sight. You have to disassemble them to find out those differentiating features.
● Ball faucet- it contains a ball bearing.
● Ceramic disk faucet- consists of a ceramic cylinder.
● Cartridge faucet- it has a cartridge whose materials vary from the faucet to faucet. The handle often contains a decorative cap.
Step 2: First, turn off the water supply.
The shut-off valves should be under the sink. Turn off the valves. If you don’t find any or in the case they get stuck, then shut off the main supply of the house.
Step 3: The next thing to do is to relieve the remaining water in the line by turning on the faucet handle.
Step 4: Before you disassemble the faucet, cover the drain first with a towel or sink plug. This will prevent small parts from dropping down into the hole.
These three steps are common regardless of the types of your kitchen faucet. What to do next varies from type to type.
How to Fix A Ball Faucet
Purchase a replacement kit
You don’t need to replace the whole faucet but only a few parts. So go to a home repair shop and look at the plumbing section. This replacement kit comes with all the necessary parts and the tools required to fix this. This’ll cost you about $20.
Unscrew and remove the handle
First, you have to lift the handle off.
Remove the collar and the cap
Use pliers to do this. Also, remove the cam with the tool provided in your replacement kit, washer, and the ball. Unlike the ‘ball and socket’ joint, usually, a white color rubber ball corks the socket. The movement of this ball controls the release of the water.
Take out the inlet seal and springs and replace
Use needle-nosed pliers to accomplish this. Now, cut off the old O-ring with a knife. Install a new one after coating it in the plumber’s grease. Then again, install the new seals, springs and cam washer in the reverse sequence.
How To Fix A Ceramic Disc Faucet
Remove the handle and escutcheon cap
First, unscrew the handle. You’ll see the escutcheon (usually metal) lying directly under the handle.
Remove the disk cylinder and seals
As you unscrew and remove the cylinder, it’ll expose several seal underside it. Seals are usually made of neoprene. Now, pry them out. If these look Frayed, pitted, worn or thin, for the sake of safety, replace them. So take them to the hardware store so to find the exact match.
Clean the cylinders
Use white vinegar especially in case of hard water. Soak the cylinders in the vinegar and wait for some hours for complete build-up. Then consider them for reuse.
Finally, reassemble the handle
After that, turn the water on.
Note: the water shouldn’t run too forcefully. Therefore, turn it slowly. Otherwise, the ceramic disk may crack.
How to Fix A Cartridge Faucet
Unscrew and remove the handle
Remove the screw first and then tilt the handle backward. Now pull it. If necessary, pry off the cap.
Pull the cartridge
Pull it to make it stand up straight. There’s a circular, plastic threaded piece called retaining clip. It sometimes causes trouble by holding the cartridge in its place. So pull it out with pliers if necessary.
Locate the faucet spout and the O-ring
Remove both of them. Then reassemble the handle.
Reassembling the Parts
There are some facts you should keep in mind while reassembling the parts.
See the brand name marked on the body of the parts. I recommend you to use the same brand. Better take the old set of parts with you to the buying store.
You can reassemble the new set in the same way you disassembled the old one. But be careful so that the orientation of parts remains the same as before.
Before installation, open the water valves to flow out the debris from the pipe. In order to clear mineral deposits, use vinegar and nylon adhesive cloth.
After you installed the new parts, now check whether the faucet functions properly or not. What you have to do is to turn on both the shut-off valves and the handles of the faucet. Now, wait for some moment.
Let the trapped air in the pipe come out so that water can flow uninterruptedly. If the water flow is slow, remove the aerator again, clean it and then reinstall.
You should take snaps or record the whole working process by means of a camera. So that in future, if anybody else ever comes up with the question, how to fix a leaky kitchen faucet can get help.
Final Verdict
See, fixing a leaky faucet is nothing daunting. Though at first, it may seem a little cumbersome to you, it’s not so. Just collect the tools, identify the leakage and get down to work! Follow the instructions above.
Treat the faucet according to its type. Also, don’t forget the tricks to follow and the facts you should avoid. Otherwise, you may tear the rubber washer or crack something and make the leakage even worse.
So isn't it wise to do it yourself instead of paying a plumber? Now you can easily say goodbye to that stubborn drip-drip sound from your kitchen.