A Simple Faucet Replacement

Being relatively new to DIY plumbing, I wondered whether I was going to be in over my head when I told my husband that I would replace the faucets in our master bathroom. After a day or two of reflection on what possessed me to say yes, and then a few weeks of dragging my feet, I decided Saturday to take the plunge. Before you read this and think that when I say I am new to DIY plumbing that I mean I have only replumbed everything in my house, I just don't have an actual plumbing license or certificate, let me clarify what I mean. The only other thing I've done is replace a toilet with the help of my dad. And help is loosely defined here as observing, getting in the way, and being the gofer for whatever tool he needed. Truly I am a novice. But I do like to try new things. And I like to open my big mouth and volunteer for things that I am totally under-qualified for. But here I am on the other side, victorious. And you can be too!

My story starts two days ago, when I picked my dad's brain about replacing a faucet. I told him I just needed a few pointers, but I was really hoping he'd just replace them while he was at my house. (Shame on me!) We talked about it, and he even came upstairs to showed me where I needed to turn the water off under the sink. I promptly gave it a try, hoping that if I got the ball rolling, he'd step in. My plan turned a little sour when I attempted to shut the water off and instead the handle snapped off.

Hmm...not a very promising start. I was now certain I wasn't going to be able to do this project on my own. If you can't turn the water off at the source, you have to go back to the next point you can turn it off, which in my case was the street meter. This turns off the water to the whole house. We made our way out to the street and found that the shutoff valve was completely stuck. Truly not a promising start. But I was not to be deterred! "I'll just call the city and have them send someone out to fix it, and turn it off," I thought. So I made the call, and they told me they would send someone out. I patted myself on the back for getting the ball rolling, not thinking of it again until this morning at just before eight. My phone rang and a man informed me he had just turned off the water to my house. I had expected them to give me more of a heads up, but there it was. "Well, I wasn't exactly planning on replacing those faucets today, but why not? WHY NOT!?" I thought. My dad was at work today, so as I drove home, I gave him a call to beg him to help me over the phone. As he always is, he said he was willing and I immediately got to work. Where in the world do I start to get the old faucet out? Since I didn't see anything I could do from above the sink, I decided to go below. With my handy, dandy wrench, I was ready to go to work unscrewing the cold water hose from the top of the valve. But just in time, I remembered that there would still be pressure in the pipes from water that was already there, so I turned the faucet on. As I expected, some water did come out. When it had stopped dripping, I got back under the sink, and set to work. The hot and cold water hoses were fairly easy to unscrew from their valves, so I went to work attempting to unscrew the large nut next to the wall on the cold water valve.

After a few turns, some heavy breathing and the nut not being anymore loose than it was when I began, I huffed and got my dad on the phone. He said I needed TWO wrenches.
And that nut I was trying to unscrew? It doesn't unscrew from the wall. It stays there, and the rest of the fitting unscrews from IT. Now armed with two wrenches, I held onto the large nut with one wrench and unscrewed the fitting with the other one. Be aware that the fitting was a whole lot more tough to get out than the water hoses. NOTE: Be sure that you get the correct fitting because there are different sizes. I actually brought the whole valve with me to Home Depot where they have a board with all the various dimensions they have in stock and you can actually measure the one you have to the ones they carry and make certain you are getting the correct size.

Back from Home Depot, and with the correct valve at the ready, I hunkered down into the tiny space under my sink once again to get that fitting back in place. I wrapped the threading in plumbing tape and screwed it back into that nut I had originally tried to take off the wall. Note: You will need to use the two wrenches again to get it tight enough. After I had it back in the wall, I was ready to test my handywork. Here, I caution you: Make sure you have the valve turned to the SHUT position.

Otherwise when you turn the water to your house back on, you will have water everywhere. And I when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE! How does she know this? you may be asking yourself. Because I had the valve turned the wrong way and I had water spraying everywhere in my bathroom. Twenty minutes, and five big towels later, I had the water sopped up, the valve in the correct SHUT position, and the water turned on. No drips! Step one done; the valves are replaced!

Now I was ready to replace those faucets. My replacement faucets came with directions, but I think most faucets install much the same. I began by feeding the water hoses through the hole in my counter/sink. It's now time to secure that baby in place. I used some bathroom



caulking around the very bottom of the faucet where it and the counter meet. And then I used the rubber and metal plates that came with the faucet to screw it in place under the sink. Be sure you follow my husband's one bit of advice: make sure the faucet is pointing into the sink. Once you have the faucet secure, you're ready to actually get the water going in the faucet. Take the red hose and screw it into the hot water valve.

Take the blue hose and screw it into the cold water valve. Be sure to use the plumbing tape around the threading here as well. When I had twisted them by hand as much as I could, I used my wrench to make sure it was tight, but not too tight. Why? Because I didn't want to kink the hose! If you kink the hose, it can cause a loss of water pressure at best and can ruin the integrity of the hose at worst. Now I was ready for the moment of truth. I slowly turned those valves to the open position. I  heard the water move into the hoses and there wasn't any dripping or spraying. So I turned on my faucets. It sounded a little spastic at first because of the air that was in the hoses. But it stopped spitting and crackling after 30 seconds or so and the flow was regular.

Whew! What an experience! I do quite a bit of DIY and some projects go much more smoothly than others, but I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I do something new. Try it! It's good for the soul!