Fixing leaky faucets

Last weekend I successfully fixed the leaky toilet in the guest bath. (A straightforward job, except the shut-off valve is stuck. Tom pointed out that I could just shut off the main water supply. Voila! A toilet that doesn't run constantly.)

So today, I decided to tackle the drippy faucets, utilizing the same water-shut-off technique. One of these days we need to replace the shut off valves, but that's a task for another day. (Or, perhaps, for a plumber--I hate working in cramped spaces.)

This was by far the easiest plumbing task I've tackled. The two faucets I fixed are the old style wide-spread two handled faucets with the "crystal" knobs. You pop out the center piece to access the screw that holds the knob on, unscrew it, and lift the handle off. Then, you use the wrench to loosen the nut that holds the cartridge in place.

In theory, you just lift out the cartridge. In practice, I had to use the flat-head screwdriver to pry them loose. When I did the second set, I was able to loosen them a little with the screwdriver, and then grab them with the channel locks and pull them out.

Once I removed the cartridges, I reached in with the needlenose plyers to pull out the seats and springs. I had a moment of panic as I realized that putting the new seats and springs in wasn't nearly as easy as taking the old ones out. That's where the tweezers came into play. I used them to set the spring in place (narrow end up), and then put the seats on top of the springs. It still took a bit of fiddling with my finger to get the seats "seated", but the tweezers helped tremendously.

Then, it was just a matter of putting the new cartridges in place and putting everything back together. There's just one catch: it's not obvious which way to set the cartridges into place. They fit into the slots two ways. If you end up 180 degrees off, you have to turn the knob backwards to turn it on and off. I now understand why the one in our downstairs bath was screwy. I honestly didn't figure out an easy way to tell without putting it back together and turning the knob. At least it's easy to fix--take it back apart, rotate the cartridge 180 degrees, and reassemble.

Oh, and then check for drips. The master faucet was still drippy when I first reassembled it. I just repeated the process, made sure the seats didn't have any crud on them, and put them back together.

No more drips!


Tools required: Phillips screwdriver, flat-head screwdriver, needle nose plyers, tweezers, crescent or channel lock wrench.
Project time: 20 minutes
Difficulty level: Easy
PITA rating: Low