So I went to change a leaky faucet. It has a swivel, and is leaking from the swivel joint. Not bad, just drip drip drip when it is on.
So I get under to shut the water off, and the hot water side is badly corroded where the shutoff meets the hot water flex tube of the faucet. The cold water side seemed to be fine. I also tried to move the quarter-turn shut off…wouldn’t budge. I could probably do it with pliers to improve my leverage, but maybe(?) it would break in the wall. Which would be bad.
So I resign myself to calling a plumber for this. On a whim, I check 1poorlady’s vanity. Not as bad, but the same situation. So I check 1poorkid’s room…again, not as bad, but it’s there. And finally the guest bath/MIL suite…yep.
Those are 16 years old. But wow. Looks like we need at the minimum replacement of the flex hoses on the hot sides on all sinks. Worst case, we also need the shutoffs replaced. I’ve got a good plumber that seems to be pretty honest, so I’m comfortable with that. Just annoying that I couldn’t do a simple swap-out of the faucets as planned. And, obviously, a good plumber is not cheap. I may replace the faucets myself after he deals with the corroded (and stuck) shutoffs, depending on whether he will charge me extra or not. Time spent would be an extra 15 minutes for him (or less). I can do it in about 15 minutes (I’ve done it before…those swivel joints failed several years ago).
1poorguy (still planning to get a photo of the scuppers to post to the linked site provided by another poster, so you can see what I’m talking about and whether the drain chains are a good idea)
When I had a captive Plumber, one for the 2-bath remodel and later when I had my regular guy in to swap out the kitchen sink, I had them replace all the old multi-turn stops/shutoffs with new quarter turns as well as replace all the hoses… Might have cost a few bucks, but they were there, it was time…
I’ve replaced the washer shutoffs as well, but many years ago because the delivery/take away guys from Lowes wouldn’t touch them, the hot side was badly corroded and they knew if they touched it, they owned it, So I did the swap, they came back and finished the setup…
It’s a common thing, apparently for the Hot side to deteriorate, so easy for them young flexible guys to do it, one less problem…
About time to replace the washing machine again, I’ll take a look ahead of time…
Galvanic corrosion is common where two metals come together. Especially galvanized with copper. Iron gets sacrificed to the copper. Best to use brass fittings with copper if you can.
I had a plumbing problem and called Angis list. Prompt service for $120. Compared to $400 for plumber. Pleased with the result. He replaced a soldered shutoff valve and found a leak was due to a failing connecting flexible toilet connector.
Well, I saved $300 by doing my wife’s faucet replacement myself. While I did that, they did all 16 sink valves in the house. All of them were frozen. Wouldn’t budge. They say it’s the water softener not doing its job (because Phoenix has very corrosive water, heavy in mineral content). Eventually they would have started to leak (some may have already been, hence the scaly corrosion at the connectors).
They were here over 2 hours, but all the shutoffs work, and I was able to change out the leaky faucet (they even checked me and said I did it right). No leaks.
Our water softener is old. Maybe it’s time to replace. I got it about 16 years ago shortly after we moved in. I wouldn’t buy one from the company we got this one. Not impressed with the quality (we’ve had to have the head replaced twice).