Drip, drip, drip . . . aaargh!

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drippingfaucetI thought faucets weren’t supposed to drip anymore? Didn’t technology give us that years ago?

I remember a dripping faucet keeping me awake at night when I was younger. I find that noise very frustrating.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed our bar sink in the basement was dripping. It was quite infrequent, but present. I went over, turned on both taps and turned them off, giving them an extra nudge. Problem apparently solved.

Well, apparently not. The issue resurfaced this week in earnest. A friend was over one afternoon and we cracked a couple of cold ones and sat at the bar. I noticed the drip again. It was back, and was much worse than before.

We took a quick look at the taps to see if there was an easy way to pop off the handle to get to the faucet’s inner workings. Such access wasn’t readily present, so we went back to the beverages.

But the next day, I took a good look at the taps and noticed a little hole underneath the handle. Out came the Allen keys and I got to work.  The handles came off in seconds, but at that point I realized I needed to shut off the water or risk turning the sink into a fountain.

With that out of the way, I pulled off the tap mounts and yanked out the hot- and cold-water innards. they were indeed washerless, but it seemed a little buildup had occurred over the past decade on the stainless steel bottoms that serve as the control valves. I cleaned them up, put everything back in place, turned the water back on and — knock on wood — so far, no drips.

We live in a throwaway society. I’m glad I didn’t have to chuck out a faucet just because of a little drip.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, well, that faucet isn’t exactly fixed. Looks like I have to rip out the cartridges and head to Chatham Plumbing this afternoon.

  2. Yep, thanks to the helpful folks at Chatham Plumbing and a mere $1.75, I say with crossed fingers the drip appears to finally be fixed. Worn gasket.

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