A while back, my kitchen sink faucet developed a drip. It would only shut off completely if you adjusted the swivel-thingie (sorry about the technical terms) to exactly the right spot. So I called the building super, and she sent someone over to replace the faucet.
The new faucet was all bright and shiny, and was not wrapped in duct tape like the old faucet, but the water flow was less than it had been before. So I looked under the sink to see if they had installed some kind of water restrictor or tightened up the valve shut-offs, but the answer was no. So I figured it was some kind of low-flow faucet. Whatevs.
Over the past week or so, I noticed that the flow coming out was less and less. So! Time to break out the tools. (Oh sweet Jeezus, famous last words. I wish I had a buck for every appliance I've broken to smithereens attempting to repair it.)
I had tried to get the end cap thingie of the faucet off before, because I could feel a screen up in there and figured that might be contributing to the low flow. I had tried unscrewing the faucet end, with no luck. So last night I broke out a wrench and one of those round grip-thingies you use to open stuck jar lids. And I started reefing on that faucet end. (Reef: To yank the hell out of.)
TA-DA!! Off popped the faucet end! And inside the faucet end was a screen, some kind of funky flow-restrictor thingie (I KNEW it!), and a couple of washers.
And some pebbles. I shit you not, there were pebbles in the screen. WTF? I am on municipal water! Granted, it's well water, but still, it goes through a treatment center before it gets to me! Why are there freaking pebbles in my drinking water?!
So! I tossed the pebbles, and played with all the faucet-end parts until I had put it all back together, but with a 500% improvement in the water flow.
And then!! I pumped my fist and did a victory dance around the kitchen, because I was SO EXCITED!! FOR ONCE I actually managed to fix something instead of breaking it into a million little pieces in a misguided repair attempt.
And I just realized that I could have written, "Last night I fixed a broken faucet" and been done with this whole post. Sorry about that.
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4 comments:
My faucets have dripped for years, and I'm just too lazy to fix them.
And why should you not celebrate this successful tap (faucets are taps here) mending by writing a 1/2 hour post???
I'm with you on that, I would too. And the dance.
Ex, in all honesty, the "drip" was more like a "steady stream" before I finally called the Super.
And Pauline, I think this post goes to show that I can, indeed, pull blog entries out of thin air. (I was going to say, "out of my butt", but that's pretty crude. Whoops! I said it anyway.)
My kitchen faucet is like that - drip, drip, drip - it drives me crazy. I'd try to fix it, but it's so old I'm sure it would fall apart and then I'd have water spraying all over the kitchen. What I really need is a new kitchen, but that's a whole other story.
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