How difficult to replace a kitchen faucet?

In My Humble Opinion
21

If you are killing faucets a lot, may i ask how is your water?

They will die a lot of the water is very hard because of the mineral deposits.
You can sometimes clean it up and its good again.

If your water is terribly hard, you might look into a softener or some kind of whole home filter.
I have well water, and it’s kind of normal for me to occasionally pull apart faucets and the aerators and the screens on the washer, and the flush valves on the toilets and soak it all in white vinegar, then toss on some new o-rings and or rubber cups and its all like normal again.

I get a lot of iron and lime/calcium

22

I realize plumber has to make a living, but changing a faucet in general is about a 15 minute job unless you are talking about trying to get some 1970’s or older stuff apart, then it can be an adventure

23

I just had a faucet replaced. The handle on the old one came off in my hand but it took 20 years to break. If you’re going through 4 faucets in 14 years, why not get a better faucet that will last 14 years? Moen is expensive but it lasted 20 years, so I stayed with it. Delta is cheap and won’t last. If you’re stuck with a cheap replacement you might as well buy all the equipment and have it ready, because that faucet will blow.

The plumber will charge you to remove the old faucet as well as replace the new one. If you can remove the old one first, you’ll save a bit of money.

24

It’s a hassle to get under the counter comfortably enough to do the actual work, and as long as the prior installer didn’t tighten fittings TOO much it’s a fairly simple operation. Have all the tools you’ll possibly need at hand before you turn off the water supply, otherwise you’ll have multiple time consuming trips to your nearest hardware store interrupting the flow of your work.

I’ve replaced our faucets multiple times, and nothing’s been ruined yet (fingers crossed)

25

More likely a minimum of 3 trips - one to purchase the parts you thought you needed, a second to pick up the parts you didn’t know you needed, and a third to return the stuff you didn’t use.

26

Yep - I was exceedingly suspicious of any “plastic tool sourced from Home Depot”, but thought - if the thing does half of what it claims, it beats the basin wrench.

I loved working with it - the length moves the action from behind the sink to below it.
Gawdsend…

27

:stuck_out_tongue: I’ve definitely heard that about wallpapering.

I’d recommend that you hire a plumber to do it.

28

My husband and I replaced a faucet. I was pregnant, so he had to crawl under the sink, and he is a big guy-- big shoulders and all. If you are a big guy, rethink this. If you are slender, or a woman, go for it.

FWIW, though, we did get it done. And it worked the first time.

29

Easy to do when you have the right tools and know how. Not so easy without.

Also get a brand name product at a plumbing supply house, not a big box place. As with everything in this world there are different levels of quality.

30

We’re big DIYers, and honestly, for us, the worst part of replacing a faucet is clearing out the junk under the sink. Well, that, and the disposal is in the way.

Of course, I’m always the one standing upright in the kitchen handing tools and doing the easy parts. Spousal unit has always crawled into the cabinet. I suspect that the next time, tho, we’ll be calling a plumber - my sweetie has had far too many spinal surgeries to be crawling under there, and I have lousy hand and arm strength. I know I have the ability to do the job - I just have wussy hands.

<passing on obvious presidential joke here.>

31

I’ve done it, and I am being pretty close to literal when I say that if I can do it, anyone can do it.

As mentioned, getting into the space is the hard part. At my age, I rely on my son, who is small enough to fit, and strong enough to work the wrench. And he is much better with his hands than I. But shut off the water, plan everything before hand, and don’t get frustrated when it doesn’t go as smoothly as it does in the YouTube video.

Good luck.

Regards,
Shodan

32

If you haven’t by now, make sure you have the plastic or stainless flex tubes going to the faucet so the next time it is easier. And if this is the fourth time in 14 years, there WILL be a next time unless you figure out why you are going through them so fast. Remove the hoses from the shutoffs, disconnect the drain, slice the caulk seal around the sink and lift out the sink. Everything that was hard to get at is now on the counter top, easy to get at. Just get all the old caulk off the sink to replace with new when you put it back. This of course assumes your sink is not that heavy or hard to get out.

33

Oh, if we were yanking the sink we’d replace it with a stainless one - ours is “white” porcelain which I loathe with the fury of the thousand suns it takes to get the thing looking clean. But as long as we’re replacing the sink we should go ahead and replace the cheap-ass laminate countertop. And if we’re doing that we might as well replace the cheap-ass cabinets… and all the while there’s a mouse sitting in a corner noshing on a whole bag of cookies.

We’ll check to see what kind of tubes we have. Supposedly the new faucet comes tomorrow, so tomorrow evening may be interesting.

As far as going with Moen… the one that just died is one of their plumber-grade (i.e. better than Home Depot crap) faucets! As was its predecessor. The one before that was Home Depot no-name. The one before that was (I think, this was over 10 years ago) Moen but may have been builder grade (i.e. cheapest thing that didn’t look awful). In any case I have zero problem going with a more expensive option if it’s gonna work better, but clearly in our case that’s not true :(.

The plumber actually recommended either Moen or Grohe (which makes some weird faucets; I used one at a relative’s house and the control bar was VERY counterintuitive).

Now, if we’d had to buy a new one, I could see going for this one. Except I’d be afraid it would try to grab me and shove me down the Insinkerator if I got too close…

34

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

That’s hilarious. Man, scoobs, I haven’t had a good laugh like that in years!

Oh, wait … you’re serious??? What’s in those Scooby Snax, anyway, hmmm?

35

It’s an easy job.

Unless.

Unless your under sink shut off valves are corroded or encrusted, and won’t close.

And then you find the main house valve is in the same shape.

So you have to shut it off at the street, but you don’t have the right tool. And it’s under a pile of dirt. And the valve is stuck. Better go buy the right tool, so you don’t break the main. That would be bad!

So first you replace the whole house valve, which you have to solder. You do have a MAPP torch? Hope you’re good at it. Might take two tries if you’re not. Don’t melt the teflon seals in the meantime. If so, another trip to HD.

Then you replace the under sink valves. Probably soldered, so they have to be cut off. Too tight in there to use the hacksaw. Got a Dremel? A pipe cutter? hope so. uh oh, they didn’t leave you enough room. Or enough pipe coming out of the wall. Now you have to solder right next to the wall. Don’t set it on fire! Did you get the right adapters? Another trip to HD!

By now you need to find the 24 hour home depot, because you can’t leave it undone, because you have the water turned off. No shower, no toilet. Fortunately, there is one. Unfortunately, it is across town. Hope they have the part!

Back home, put the valves in. Now to remove the faucet. Oops, corroded. Nuts frozen. Can’t move them. Must cut. No room! An hour fighting the retaining nuts, which includes the use of hammers and chisels and appropriate profanities. Finally, success!

Then it goes together pretty fast after that. Tomorrow, another trip to return the stuff you didn’t need.

And I’d still rather do it myself than pay a plumber. 15 years since the replacement, and not a problem. Plus now I have my own MAPP torch.

Also, if you must replace the shut off valves, use ball valves. They are more expensive, but they don’t corrode shut.

36

I replaced the faucet in my old house. The original faucet was held in place by a collar that was rusted in place. I couldn’t get it off no matter what I tried. I finally tried cutting it with with a hacksaw. It broke the blade.

What finally worked was a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade. That worked beautifully. The new one went in easily.

In my current house, I called a plumber. The faucet that came with the house was German. I could only get parts off of ebay. I replaced it with a Delta faucet. Ill probably replace that in a few years as well.

37

Been there. 15 years ago my wife’s “I want to update the counter” plea “and while we’re at it” cost north of $100K not including the beer for the family members that worked at some of the home building specialties (flooring, painting, wiring.) Doubled the size of the house.

38

Status update:

It did take about an hour to change out the faucet not counting downtime after removing the old one, to clean off the surface because of years of crud that had somehow concreted itself to the base of the old one.

Of course, we did indeed have trouble with the feeder valves under the sink; when my husband turned them off, the faucet was still dribbling, so he determined it would be best to replace the bad valve first.

That went fine.

Then he did the other valve figuring it was just a matter of time before it went also.

:eek::eek::smack:

That whole process took him and a friend several hours, with the entire house’s water shut off, and periodically turning it back on to see if things were still leaking… but they finally got it done. By then it was 11 PM so we did without kitchen sink water again until the next night, when they did the faucet. Perhaps he’ll pop in and describe what they had to do - I know it involved me doing a search for a Youtube video on how to remove one particular part. No spontaneous trips to Home Depot because by now, it’s 11 at night and they closed at 10.

Main house water valve had actually been replaced just a couple years ago - and I think it was indeed with a ball valve.

39

Congrats.

I think we can chalk this one up as “Done. With typical DIY grace and style. But no divorce was filed, neither did the house collapse nor catch fire. So success all around!”

40

And it saved us 800 dollars vs having the plumber put a new one in off the truck, or 300 bucks if the plumber had installed the replacement we got from the manufacturer.

Of course, after my husband (with the help of our housemate, who is handier with tools than HE is) finished the deed, I asked “so looking at your billing rates and HM’s, was this really cheaper?”. He said “I’ve been trying not to think about that!” :D.