No More Dripping…

July 25, 2013 by Our Wolf Den 20 Comments

On a shopping trip to Home Depot for spray paint, we found ourselves in the faucet aisle. I have been keeping an eye out for a new kitchen faucet since we bought the house. Wolfy has been hesitant to replace the one we had. Every time I mentioned it, he mentioned how expensive they can be and maybe we should wait awhile. Yet we kept looking.

The one we inherited when we bought had a leaking issue. When you turned it full off (like it was in the before pictures) there was a steady stream of water. So we had to back it off to a precarious half on half off position to make sure there was no water coming out. I was worried we would forget this and turn the water “off” and leave for work and the sink would drip the whole day. Worse yet our sink that likes to clog would not allow the water to escape and would flood the house. It wasn’t a promising idea.

We decided to bite the bullet and buy a new faucet before we left for our weekend away to Virginia, so the pet sitter would not have to worry about our finicky faucet issue. To our surprise we found a nice faucet in brushed nickel for $88 from Glacier Bay. After we got home, we got right down to installing the faucet. Make sure to follow the instructions included in your new faucet. But here are the steps we followed…

Step 1:

Turn off the water. Under the sink we have three water valves; the hot, the cold, and the one for the dishwasher. Wolfy turned off all three. The hot and cold have to be turned off and he turned off the dishwasher water just to be safe.

Step 2:

Unhook the water lines. Each line will be hooked up to the copper lines that are in the cabinet and to the faucet itself.

Step 3:

The next step on our list was to remove the weight that allows the pull out faucet to pull back in. Depending on the style you may not have this.

Step 4:

Remove the nut(s) that are holding the faucet to the sink base.

Step 5:

Pull the old faucet out. You are half way there!!!

Step 6:

Remove the o-ring that was under the old faucet and clean the area. You want to make sure any grease or dirt is gone so the new faucet will seal tight.

Step 7:

Set the new faucet in the hole. Line it up (it is helpful to have two sets of hands) and attach the nut(s) underneath the sink base. You want to make sure they are tight enough that you can not move the faucet base but you do not want to over tighten it. Like all o-rings if you over tighten it you can compress the o-ring too much and cause a leak.

Step 8:

Install the new weight.

Step 9:

Attach the water lines. Remember the water lines will need to be attached to the faucet and to the copper supply lines. Make sure the cold and hot lines are attached to the appropriate lines, there is nothing worse than having your cold and hot lines backwards and getting hot water instead of cold. If this happens you will just need to swap them at one end.

Step 10:

Turn your water back on and you are done! We had to tighten the fitting that attached to the pullout faucet on ours but other than that you are ready to enjoy your new faucet.