So…one of our sinks was dripping water from underneath. Supposed to be lifetime warranty, so took some pictures and contacted the manufacturer. They said it was a bad cartridge (two of them), and sent us replacements.
Getting the old ones out was a PITA. One of them in particular had a rusted lock nut. But we got it out, replaced with the new cartridges, and even the new hose they sent. Managed to turn on the main supplies without incident. But when we try to run the water, it leaks worse than before. It appears to be coming from two holes in the cartridges above where the hose coupling is. I don’t know what those holes are for, but that’s where it’s coming from.
After about 5 hours of fighting with this, and triple checking the diagram, I finally gave up. Called a plumber. [sigh]
Frustrating that I’ve replaced cartridges before without issue. Don’t know why this is different. Grrrrrr.
Just had a revelation. The diagram is not accompanied by written instructions. But upon close examination, I realized the hose unit (it has three connections) between the two valves and the faucet had to be ABOVE the cotter pin. Had to push hard to get it up enough to put the cotter pin below it. Both hot and cold sides. The holes were the water outlets, and the hose/collars are supposed to go over them. Duh.
Hmmm, kitchen sink?/ Cold water filter? Always good to have a friendly plumber’s number handy… I can’t deal with getting down n under, so, I give up, call my guy… BIL would do it, but we already rely on hime a lot more lately.. If I got down there, I’d never get back up! 911 Lift Assist! DW couldn’t help, either…
The guts of the faucets now are called “cartridges”. Dunno why. They were leaking, and at first my BIL and I replaced them incorrectly. I called a plumber to get on their schedule, and about an hour later had a revelation. Corrected our error, it works.
It is easy enough for a non-plumber to do as long as you get clear diagrams and/or instructions. The ones I had were so-so (no real instructions, just a diagram).
But, yeah…getting under the sink is a PITA. Especially when your back isn’t great (which mine isn’t).
I wonder if some brands are better at this. They keep making thing cheaper and less reliable. They hope you will buy new more often. But then comes leaks, frustration, plumber calls, and labor.
Clearly not quality supplier. Most people continue to buy the cheapest and pay the cost of poor reliability. Another you can pay me now or pay me later.
Ahh, yes, we recently replaced kitchen, bath, shower, tub faucets as part of either remodeling, or the kitchen sink replacement, I think all are Moen, so new enough, hopefully I don’t have to dig into them… Shower is scald-proof, pretty sensitive, but we immediately noted that we no longer saw/felt any change if the other toilet is flushed, so well worth whatever we had to pay… All fixtures have flow limiters, but the kitchen sink has a bypass button, handy for pot filling, where flow rate control isn’t needed… The old faucet needed a new hose, but Amazon refused to ship the replacement to CA.. Not worth the hassle to drop-ship to my NV in-law to get around that… Needed an update anyway…
I added, after the bath remodels (2), a valve under the farthest sink, and a pump at the WH, to push the Hot water out to the sinks, nearly eliminating the delay we used to have, waiting for the hot water to get out there… Only gripe is that there may be a delay for cold water of pill taking, but no biggie..