The Drippy Faucet

The Drippy Faucet

It all started with a simple drip. The showerhead in my master bathroom had been leaking for a couple of days. It started driving my wife and me crazy because we could hear it as we lay in bed trying to fall asleep. Finally, one Saturday morning after a restless night, I decided to do something about it.

My perception of the situation led me to believe it would be a simple project. I have heard, from a plumber friend of mine, about the gates in the valves sticking before but never did I believe changing them out would be a problem or even hard. I believed that all I would have to do is go to the local hardware store, Home Depot, and purchase a rebuild kit that includes 3 stems, 3 seats, 3 chromed handles and trims. The instructions that came with the kit were very easy to follow. First, the instructions recommended turning the water off to the house as to not make a mess. Next, they said to loosen the screws that held the old handles on and remove them. Third, they said to remove the old seats and stems. Fourth, reassemble with the new seats, stems, and attach the new handles. I thought to myself that this $15 and fifteen minutes would solve my annoying problem and we would be able to sleep in peace. I was wrong.

I finished the install in less than fifteen minutes and walked outside to turn the house water back on. As I walked into the hallway that led to our master bath, I heard a faint dripping sound. I thought to myself that I must not have turned the new handles all the way to the off position. I was wrong again.

At that point I was beginning to get a little frustrated, but little did I know. I was then on my way back to Home Depot. I asked the attendant in the plumbing section what to do. He recommended changing out the whole faucet assembly. He pointed me in the direction of where I could find one and I then picked out one. When I got home, I took the faucet assembly out of the box and was taken back. I didn’t have a clue where to start. After reading the directions, I realized that I would have to install it from the access panel located on the opposite side of the wall. After removing the access panel, I should have been able to easily access the faucet assembly but that wasn’t the case. The access panel was installed about a foot lower than the faucet assembly and I could not reach my tools up in the wall to loosen the threads.