We’ve had a bathroom faucet that’s need replacing for a while now. Being semi retired I actually have the time to do projects like this, although generally I prefer to call my on retainer plumber. The last time he was over doing a fairly complex job for me I asked him about the bathroom faucet and he told me that it shouldn’t be too hard and that I could tackle it myself. OK, he knows what he’s doing and the truth is other than contorting myself into positions that I’d prefer not to, this job wasn’t exactly rocket surgery. I also had to take out the sink and re-caulk it since the old caulking had sort of crumbled.

While I was procrastinating, uh, contemplating the job I came across a new in box Delta bathroom faucet for very short money. I checked it out and it was still new in the box, with all the parts and instructions. I snapped it up and planned my project.

This morning I started on the project. My plan here was to make sure that I could get the water off, remove the feeds, removed the drain pipe, remove the old faucet itself, put in the new faucet and drain pipe, attach the new flex feeds, turn the water on, make sure that everything was tight, and then caulk the sink. If at any point I wasn’t able to disassemble something (generally the hardest part), I’d stop and call the plumber to come over and do the job when he could. This meant that I was going to temporarily loosen things and then tighten them until I was sure that all systems were go.

Pretty good plan, if I say so myself.

First the water had to be shut off. OK, that took a bit of twisting with a wrench as we have pretty hard water and plumbing tends to get a bit corroded.

I then loosened and then tightened the fittings on the water feeds. No problem. In fact much easier than I thought it would be.

Next, I loosened and then tightened the fittings on the drain pipe. That was really easy, I was still on a roll.

All that was left was to reach up and loosen the handy dandy nylon nuts that held the faucet in place. Which is where I should have stopped. These are supposed to be “finger tight”. That’s why the made them of nylon and not brass or something else. They even had little “wings” so that I could grab on and turn. Nice try, but those suckers were tighter than anything else in the project. I got my heat gun, not a torch, but one of those heat guns that looks like a hair drier but will set your head on fire if you use it for that. Slow, gentle heat for about five minutes fixed one of them, but the other one wouldn’t budge. I even tried about thirty seconds with the heat on high, but that didn’t help.

Which is when I should have quit, but didn’t. Instead inspiration hit me. Since I had to do the caulking anyway, why not just take the whole sink out, bring it down to my work bench, and take the faucet out there? This seemed like a good idea because I could take out the old faucet, scrape off the disgusting old caulking, replace the faucet and put the flexible feeds on. BRILLIANT!

That all actually went pretty well. I got the old faucet out, cleaned off the bottom where the caulk was going to go, put the new faucet in and attached the flexible feeds. Easy.

Back up to the bathroom where I placed the sink back into the vanity, attached the feeds to the valves, and then tackled the drain pipe. Which turned out to be a pain in the neck. Which it shouldn’t have been but decided to be. I put everything together, put the pop up for the drain in, turned on the water, and… the drain leaked like a sieve. Oh, would have helped to put the washer in, wouldn’t it? Duh. Took the drain apart, put the washer in, turned on the water and all was dry. Great. I was almost there.

I took the aerator out, which I should have done before the initial turn on, and let the water run. No problems with that either. I then did the caulking around the sink, a job that I hate. I’m just never really good with this, but I gave it a try. Nice job, if I say so myself.

One last leak check and I was done. I turned on the water, stuck my head in the vanity, turned on my flashlight, and was met with a waterfall. A small one, but a water fall, none the less. I checked all of the fittings and they were tight, the leak seemed to be coming from the faucet body itself.

WTF, over?

I called my plumber friend and left a message. He’s a good kid and more importantly, a very good plumber. Not only is he skilled in the way of pipes and drains and plumbing, but more importantly he calls back if he doesn’t answer the phone. I’ve known him since he was about ten and his father is one of my two closest friends. Maybe that’s why he calls me back, but everyone I have ever referred him to has raved about him. A reliable plumber is a thing of beauty.

He called me back and I described the problem. He opined that I had screwed up when tightening the fittings on the faucet end and since the copper isn’t really that robust I had probably cracked the pipe up where it ties into the mixing valve. Great. He suggested I buy another one and try again, being just a bit more gentle this time. Actually not a huge deal since I was only into the first one for a few dollars.

Off to the Despot I went and I found the newer iteration of the faucet. It wasn’t horrendously expensive, so I grabbed it and headed to the check out. Only one unplanned trip for parts is pretty good.

Back home, I took the “old” new faucet out, connected the feeds to the “new” new faucet, put everything back together, turned on the water feeds, crossed my fingers, and turned on the faucet.

Water came out of where it was supposed to and there was no waterfall under the vanity. Success!

I tidied up, put the aerator back in, and took one last look under the vanity.

Hmmm, the vanity wasn’t wet there before, even when the internal waterfall was at full throttle. Time to grab the flashlight and take a closer look.

Damn!

There were now two pinholes in the cold water feed. On the wrong side of the valve of course. The only way to stop this was to turn off the water for the whole house. Which I did.

I called my friendly plumber again, left a message, and 15 or so minutes later he called me back. I asked if he knew of a temporary fix until he could get over to the house. “No, and I can’t get there tomorrow.”

Double Damn!

“The only thing to do is for me to come over tonight. I’ll be there around 8:30 or 9:00.”

Which is where I sit as I type.

He’ll come over, he’ll fix this, he’ll charge me below market rates. I’d pay market rates without blinking, but that won’t be what he’ll charge.

I mentioned to him that I should have called him to do the job, but he said essentially that shit happens and not to worry about it.

Oh well, I’ll have a chance to redeem myself tomorrow or Wednesday. I have a front porch light fixture that needs to be replaced. The only problem is that I don’t know any electricians.

The way my luck is running maybe I should put the fire department on standby.

Just in case.