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Old 01-19-2011, 01:36 PM
 
271 posts, read 781,980 times
Reputation: 170

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My bathroom sink is leaking...a constant drip drip drip. I turned off the water supply to both the hot and the cold. There was still a drip. After I did that I turned the cold water knob all the way on and even with the water supply cut off, it was leaking a steady small stream. When I turned the hot water all the way on, it just did the drip. So I am assuming there is something wrong with the cold side. Anyway, I am looking for suggestions on what to try first, second, third, etc...You don't have to explain what to do, I can look it up on the internet or my husband can figure it out...I'd just like to know what I might try replacing first. Thanks!
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Old 01-19-2011, 04:05 PM
 
Location: Eastern Washington
17,106 posts, read 56,720,019 times
Reputation: 18365
This is apparently a faucet with individual control valves for hot and cold, and you also have supply valves that leak past their seats too. First try cycling the under-sink supply valves a few times and see if you can get them to both shut off tight. If not you may need to shut a valve upstream of them off and/or be ready to deal with some water leaking out while you work on the sink valves.Having done whatever you are going to do with that, if you have old-school valves, you just take the handle off, loosen the nut holding the stem in, take the stem out and replace the rubber washer that is the sealing element. Look down into the valve and see if the seat is "cut" with a v-notch like groove in it - if so, you can either replace it, they have a square drive hole in the center and as far as I know all are right -hand threads. If you can't get it loose, and/or the damage is minimal, there are tools to file down the seat, a little rotary file on a screw-threaded rod. If you have a cartridge type rather than old school type faucet, the usual practial way to repair is to just replace the cartridge with a new one. Cartridge type valves don't seal tighter as you turn the handle harder, they just have a sliding port that aligns with the inlet fully, partially, or not at all as you turn the handle.
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Old 01-19-2011, 09:02 PM
 
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
7,646 posts, read 9,882,762 times
Reputation: 16450
You may have a couple of problems. First, it appears your stop valves are not working. This can be from calcium build up clogging the valves or lack of use. (They should be lubricated with oil or WD40 and turned every 6 months.)

To fix that required either a plumber or the proper tools. You need to shut off the water at the main line and drain the pipes to below the level you are working at. Then you need a valve puller. If you have enough pipe sticking out the wall you can cut the valve off. Most plumbers use compression 1/4 turn angle stop valves. Avoid the gate valves, they alwasy see to go out fast.

Once the stop valve is replace you can deal with the faucet. You can either take the faucet apart and clean it or relplace any gaskets, depending on the type. Or just replace the whole faucet. I usually go this route as by the time the gaskets go out the faucet has seen better days.

So why spend 50 cents when you can spend 50 bucks!

This isn't hard to do, but you do need to right tools to do it right and without frustration.
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