The dreaded drip, drip, drip. It painfully rings throughout your house and it feels like you can hear it everywhere. You’re lying in bed trying to sleep, but there it is. Drip, drip, drip. You’re on the sofa trying to watch a movie and relax, yet you can’t get that sound out of your head.
Where is it coming from? Either your bathroom or kitchen has a leaky faucet. You checked and all the handles are closed tight, but there’s still some water dripping down into the basin below. With every drop of water the sound amplifies, turning you insane. It’s gone on for far too long – you need to take action.
Fixing a leaky faucet is simple for plumbers, though you’ll have to deal with unreasonable call-out charges and waiting times. Why spend money on a task like this when you can do it yourself? You don’t need extensive plumbing skills to get this job done – so let’s see how to fix a leaky faucet at home!
Step 1: Get The Right Tools
As with all DIY projects, your first step is assembling the tools in your kit. What do you need to fix a leaky faucet?
Well, it depends on the cause of the leak – so you can’t get everything you need right away. Instead, purchase some basic tools that’ll help you turn off the water and inspect your faucet. All you’ll need are:
- An adjustable wrench
- A screwdriver set
If we’re being honest, most of you will have these items in your toolkit anyway, so that’s fantastic. You could also have some WD-40 handy as this will help loosen any extremely tight bolts.
Armed with your tools, you can progress to step two and start figuring out why your faucet keeps leaking.
Step 2: Turn Off The Water
Before you do any work on your faucet, ensure the water supply is turned off. Look at the pipes underneath and there should be knobs or screws for you to turn. This will activate the valves, meaning no water is supplied through the faucet.
You’re not necessarily figuring anything out at this moment, but it prevents a lot of mess when you begin taking things apart. If the water supply is on, you’ll end up spraying water from the faucet when you remove the handles and do a bit of DIY work. It’s not worth the mess, so keep the water supply turned off.
You’ll know if it’s off because you can turn the handles and no water will run out after a few minutes. There could be some residual water in the pipe, but once that’s dribbled out there shouldn’t be anything coming out of the faucet.
Step 3: Remove The Handles
With the water off, you’re ready to remove the handles. Inspect yours to see how they come off. Some will have screws underneath while others will have little caps on the side that you need to take off, revealing a screw. Either way, once you’ve found the screw, select the right screwdriver and get turning!
Pro Tip: Cover the basin with something to prevent screws falling down the plug hole. You can put the plug in if you still have it, but laying down some kitchen towels or cloth will also help.
If you’re struggling to unscrew things or the handles aren’t coming off, try spraying a bit of your WD-40. This should loosen things up and make it much easier to take off the handles. You should now see the exposed stem – this is the mechanism that opens or closes the valve for each handle, letting water through.
Step 4: Take The Stem Out
This is the most physical job during the whole fix. Make sure you have a good wrench for this part – ideally, it should be adjustable and provide a very firm grip. There’ll be a packing nut around the stem that you must clamp with your wrench and twist to loosen.
Again, be sure you don’t lose this nut as it’ll be impossible to put the faucet back together again. Once removed, you can either pull the stem off or twist it – it depends on how your faucet was constructed. Try pulling to start with before twisting. If it still isn’t budging, you might need your wrench to assist.
Look at all the parts you just removed and see if there are problems. If you notice cracks or damages to any aspects of the faucet stem or packing nut, you must order a replacement. These issues might cause the leaks, but even if they don’t it’s good to replace them before other issues occur. You’ll find plenty of stainless steel pipe fittings online that can be useful to tighten up your plumbing fixtures around the faucet.
Step 5: Check The Washer & O-Ring
The washer and O-ring are both responsible for helping the valve work properly. When they’re in excellent condition, the valve can close and open efficiently. However, if either starts to deteriorate, the valve leaves tiny gaps, allowing water to come through.
Et voila, you’ve just discovered the number one reason for leaky faucets! Pay close attention to these parts and replace them if they look rusty or worn down. You can order large O-ring sets online that come in loads of sizes, so pick one up from Amazon and then compare your current rings with the ones in that set. It’s important to choose one that fits perfectly or you’ll still see the leaks.
The same goes for washers – yours should have some writing on it stating the measurements. If not, measure it with a tape measure and buy a suitable replacement. At this point, you can either re-assemble your faucet and wait for the replacement parts to arrive or go out and buy them from a hardware store. It depends on what you’d rather do or how busy you are!
Regardless, when the replacements arrive, swap them for the old items. Then, re-assemble the whole faucet and turn the water on. See if anything changes – in 90% of cases, the dripping will stop. You’ll finally find inner peace and will no longer be up all night tossing and turning because your faucet is driving you mad.
If not, you might need to try and remove the faucet from the basin. There could be issues with the valves at the very bottom of the pipe where it sits on the basin. This is where the cartridge is, which controls the water flow.
Step 6: Detach The Faucet From The Basin
You have to go under the basin to do this and look for bolts or nuts securing the faucet in place. Loosen these and you should be able to lift it straight into the air, exposing the piping and cartridge.
It’s a similar job to removing the stem from the handles – twist the cartridge loose and inspect the valve, washer, and O-ring. If anything looks damaged, replace it with something new. Put it all back where it needs to go and turn the water on.
This should result in a fixed faucet with no more leaks. If it’s STILL leaking, then there’s a much bigger problem afoot. Sadly, your only option is to call a plumber!
However, the vast majority of homeowners will fix leaky faucets by either replacing washers/valves in the handles or cartridges. Reading all of these steps makes it seem like a tough and lengthy task, but to be honest you can do it all within half an hour if you have the replacement parts handy.
