How to change a washer in a bathroom faucet in 105 days (or less)

Or how I spent my Summer and Autumn
Day One

Determine that the faucet is, indeed, leaking, not simply incompletely turned off. Try turning off faucet harder.

Day Two through Day Ninety-Three

Note that faucet is dripping faster with passage of time. Continue to turn faucet handle harder.

Day Ninety-Four

Cracks appear in faucet handle. Water is now not so much dripping as trickling. Previous turning harder strategy having failed, decide that "something must be done."

Day Ninety-Five

Decide to replace the faucet washer. Things move very fast now. To replace a faucet washer first requires removing the faucet handle, which is typically held by a Philips-head screw. In the usual faucet set, this is concealed under a snap-on plastic inset that has the letter "H" or "C" on it, standing for "Hot" or "Cold" respectively. These indicate which is the Hot water tap and which is the Cold water tap, unless, during a previous repair, someone has taken them off and replaced them on the incorrect knobs. Which might explain why you can never get any hot water when washing your face. Whatever. Remove the plastic inset using a small, flat-bladed screwdriver, or your fingernails. Next, remove the screw that holds the handle or knob to the faucet stem. You can then pull the handle off the stem, or, if the stress cracks after the months of turning the handles harder are deep enough, remove the pieces.

Now, you will see the stem. It is held in place by a metal nut that must be removed using a wrench, which you probably don't have or cannot find, forcing you to use pliers. The pliers will slip and scratch the finish of the faucet. But, if it is old enough to need washers, then it doesn't matter all that much anyway, as it is covered with nicks and scratches from previous repairs. As you turn the nut, you will notice water will begin to leak from around the stem. It might even spray out in streams. Relax. This is to be expected, because you have not shut off the water to the tap. (You may be wondering why you were not told about this earlier. That is a reasonable question.)

Luckily, the plumber who installed the faucet had anticipated that this very situation might arise, and also had installed an aptly named "shut-off" valve on each of the hot and cold water pipes leading to the faucet. The valves are located under the sink. Attempt to shut off water to the leaking faucet using the relevant shut-off valve under the bathroom sink. (The ones under the kitchen sink would not be of much help, now, would they?) (Also parenthetically, the shut-off valves will not be labeled "Hot" and "Cold," nor even ""H" and "C," so you will be forced to rely upon observation and your own judgment to identify which water line leads to which tap.) When you have identified the shut-off valve that controls the water flow to the tap that you are working on, turn the handle on the valve clockwise to close the valve and shut off the water to the tap. You will note very quickly that the "shut-off valve" is in reality inaptly named, as it will not shut-off the flow of water to the leaking faucet. It is a theoretical shut-off valve, and ought to be taught as such. It will not budge, however much you injure yourself in the attempt. When it does not turn, if you are of average intelligence, you will probably think that you are actually trying to open an already open valve, thereby making things worse. In fact, if you are of average intelligence, the odds are about 50-50 that you don't know clockwise from counter-clockwise. If the valve is stuck in the open position, then turning it in the counter-clockwise direction might loosen it. Or it might make things worse. The odds are that it will do nothing, either way. While the feeling is returning to your fingers, you will decide that more leverage is needed. Time for the long-handled Channellock Slip-Joint Pliers!

Inspection of the area, however, reveals that there is, in fact, no possibility of applying more leverage to the inaptly-named theoretical shut-off valve, because, 1) the valve is located adjacent the drain, leaving no room to grasp the handle of the valve with long-handled pliers, without first disassembling the drain, 2) the handle of the valve is made of some flimsy material that might be aluminum, and would be crushed in the jaws of pliers, even if they could be applied, and 3) the slip-joint pliers are a really cool-looking tool that are fascinating under any circumstances. Although this last point does not technically prevent you from using them, it does delay any action while you contemplate their coolness and resemblance to a Tyrannosaur.

You decide that to apply more leverage without disassembling the drain (which appears to be working perfectly well without leaking), you should remove the valve handle and use "vise grip" pliers, which, although also cool, are not nearly as impressive as the long-handled Channellock Slip-Joint Pliers, on the stem of the valve. This decision leads one inevitably to the removal of the screw that fastens the flimsy-handle-that-might-be-aluminum to the valve stem. Naturally, this is a slotted screw, so, if it is, as is highly probable, also immobile, there will be but one chance to loosen the screw before it is too damaged by the screwdriver blade to be of any further use. Against all expectations (you are growing more skeptical in your old age, which is being hastened by this washer-exchange business), the screw comes loose with only a slight, token resistance. Just tug on the handle, and it will come off. Just kidding. The handle is as firmly stuck to the stem as though the screw was still in place. In fact, the screw is superfluous. No one would ever consider stealing he handle, and it clearly will not fall off, so what is the screw doing there? This is clearly an example of the screw lobby's power to influence plumbing codes. But, politics aside, a few minutes of tugging and tapping and cursing and rocking the handle will succeed in removing it. You can now use the vise grip pliers.

The valve stem has a knurled surface, a series of longitudinal ridges that engage a similar set of ridges on the handle. The vise grip pliers have knurled jaws. (Knurl is a funny word, by the way, one that misleads many people to think that plumbing is somehow enjoyable.) Anyway, the pliers and the stem are made for one another as it were. Once the pliers have been locked onto the stem, then the problem will be resolved in a few seconds. One of two things will happen.

One, the stuck valve will shudder, grind and then come unstuck. The stem will turn, stiffly at first, but with increasing ease, and the water will stop running through to the tap. Or two, things will get worse. A person of average intelligence will calculate that the odds of each happening are about equal. People of average intelligence become president of the United States. They should not be doing plumbing. Of course it will get worse, much, much worse. The pliers will meet an immovable object. And being made of hardened steel, while the stem is made of less hard brass, the steel jaws will cut through the brass, which will be sheared away as facial hair under the relentless quad-bladed razor. Something that you will be doing over the kitchen sink tomorrow, very likely.

You have reached, as they saying goes among airplane pilots, the point of no-return. This is the moment in "The High and the Mighty" when Robert Stack decides to fly on, because there is not enough fuel to turn back. John Wayne is waiting to slap you silly in about thirty minutes. You have now rendered the valve permanently useless, unless you can manage to work it free. The handle can no longer be put back on with the intention of future use. If you can work it free, then in future, if you still own the house, you can pull out the vise grip pliers to turn the valve off. If you cannot work it free, then you will have to perform surgery, remove the valve and put in a new one. A nuisance, you think, but not all that bad. You are an idiot.

To replace the washer, you needed to shut off the water to the tap. To shut off the water to the tap, you needed to shut a small valve under the sink. That task has defeated you. To remove the stuck valve and replace it, you will need to shut off water to the whole house. If you are very lucky, it is the hot water that you need to shut off. That means that you can still have running cold water for things like drinking and cooking and flushing the toilet. But in any case, it means that you have to shut off a big valve, one that has probably not been turned in the last ten years. And, if you cannot close that valve, then you must escalate and wrestle with the valve that cuts off all water to the house. Point of no-return. Do you really want to go past this point?

You can stop now. Sure, the leaky faucet will continue to leak. Sure, you will be constantly reminded of your defeat by a washer and its ally that shiny little chrome-plated valve. But you will have hot and cold running water. Or you could call a plumber. The plumber will take one look at the job you have done so far, lick his lips and call the Mercedes dealer to order that new model 300. Do you want to proceed, or do you want to suffer the humiliation and the taunts of the faucet drips and the smug look on the face of the plumber? (We have already established during the course of this exercise that your IQ has dropped about 40 points from Average to Idiot level.) Of course, you will press on to victory or total annihilation. The only question is, what to do next?

Buy time. You try to open the valve with the vise grips again, first, but you then apply some penetrating oil to the stem, or spray it with a lubricant, in the hope that the stem will somehow free itself. This is, naturally, a vain, or to be more precise, stupid, hope. The valve is frozen internally by calcification and corrosion. No amount of penetrating oil or lubricant applied externally will have any virtue, other than to provide the illusion that you are doing something. You are buying time to screw up your courage for the inevitable moment when you must attack the main supply valve. So, you wait.

Day Ninety-Six to Day One Hundred Two

It is a Monday. You have given up the delusion that the valve will come unstuck through the further application of oils and vise grips. You know that you must replace the shut-off valve. The hot water tap is the leaky one. That is one lucky break. You go out to the hot water heater, where the valve that controls hot water to the house sits in its untouched dustiness. You reach up and place your hand on the circular red valve handle. You turn your wrist. Your hand remains unmoved. You apply greater torque. Nothing. You use both hands. Twice as much nothing as before. It is as you feared. This valve, too, is stuck open. But you are all in now. And there is a clear space all round the hot water valve. At last, the moment has arrived for the long-handled Channellock Slip-Joint Pliers!

Now, the red circular handle of the hot water valve is made of even flimsier stuff than that of the shut-off valve under the sink. The thing itself resembles a spider web, and has about the same compression strength. Despite the oft-repeated truism about the strength of spider silk, that is tensile strength not compression strength. Still, if you are very careful, you can use the long-handled Channellock Slip-Joint Pliers on the orb-web hot water valve handle. You position the jaws of the pliers to spread their pressure evenly on the valve. You then grasp the pliers firmly but loosely, and gently pull down. Gently. The valve turns. Doolittle's raiders have struck back at the crucial moment, giving a morale boost to a depressed nation. It is a small victory, a small turning point. Things are definitely looking up.

The drip has stopped, of course. That is further cause for celebration, undeserved though it may be. All that remains to be done is to take a wrench and remove the shut-off valve, then replace it with a new one, which should take a few minutes. Unfortunately, because of the proximity of the drain and trap to the shut-off valve, you will be forced to disconnect at least part of the drain to have room to use the wrench. Well, so be it. You are buoyed by the hubris of the hot-water-supply-valve victory. The drain puts up no resistance at all. You even collect the water in a basin. You are really rolling forward now. Patton sweeping through Sicily. Schwarzkopf up the Kuwait-Baghdad highway. On to the shut-off valve. It's a cramped work site, but the adjustable wrench has half a turn's worth of room in which to swing. You press the attack. Slowly, one quarter of a turn, one half of a turn, it yields. You reposition the wrench and advance another half turn, another, and another, and another, and another and...well, on and on and on, it turns and turns and turns, but it never reaches the end. It is stripped. The damned thing is stripped. You pull and turn at the same time. It hits that stripped thread and sticks, and then it slips back. You twist and pull and wrack it and get nowhere. The Battle of the Bulge has begun. You have been thrown back by an unexpected thrust by the enemy.

There is no holding back now. Where there is an impassable road ahead, you simply go around the blockage. That is the lesson of military history. The French have fortified the Maginot Line, Go around it. The Iraqis have fortified the border with Kuwait. Do an end run, a Hail Mary pass. Armed with the ultimate weapon, the pipe cutter, you simply cut off the copper pipe, removing the stripped fitting, the valve, and half an inch of copper pipe all at one go. The enemy has been circumvented, cut off and defeated.

Your objective now is to restore hot water to rest of the house. To do that, you must install a new shut-off valve on the severed pipe. With that in place, the hot water supply to the rest of the house can be restored and the job finished up at your leisure. To the hardware store.

New torch. New valve. New solder. New flux. New fitting. Only one problem. What size is the pipe? Half inch? Five eighths? Wait! What about the washer? Two trips to the hardware store then. And one to the plumbing supply place farther out of town. And another.

Eventually, after piling up the miles and spending about $100 dollars, you are ready to do some plumbing.

At some time in the years between your last plumbing job and this one, the world decided, without asking you, to switch from standard lead/tin solder to a "lead free" solder of silver, tin, copper and bismuth. Lead, as everyone knows, is bad for you and other human beings. There is a recurring theory that lead brought about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Every twenty years or so, it becomes fashionable to blame lead for the military and economic collapse of Rome. The Romans loved lead, to be sure. They had it in their pewter cookware, their ceramic plates and cups and jugs were slathered with lead glazes, their plumbing was leaden. Their pipes were solid lead, in fact. (plumbum, Latin for lead, is the root of the English word plumbing.) They even added lead to their poorer quality wines to make them sweeter. So, what with America being the modern Rome, we have decided to go lead-free and avoid the decline and fall. Now, there are about fifty solder joints, give or take fifty percent, in the plumbing of a house with copper pipes. The amount of solder in any joint probably would cover about as much area as a postage stamp, and not one of those long commemorative stamps, either, but just a plain old little gummed rectangle that fits in that upper right hand corner box that some envelopes have on them to remind you where the postage stamp should be pasted. Because you might not know, and put the stamp on the back by mistake. And that postage stamp of solder probably weighs, when taken altogether with the other postage stamps, less than eight ounces. Now a plumber will use more than eight ounces of solder, you will object, and correctly. Most of it will end up wiped on a rag or dropped on the ground, or smeared on the outside of the pipe, and only a thin layer will actually fill in the gap between the pipe and the union or the fitting or whatever. And of that layer, how much will ever come into contact with the water that flows through the pipes? Only the surface of the half or five-eighths or three-quarters inch diameter ring of solder in the gap where the two copper pieces do not quite meet. Bear in mind that lead solder was not more than 60 percent lead. 50/50 lead/tin was common. So, there are something like four ounces of lead in the plumbing system, and virtually none of it ever contacts the water, and of that unimaginably small amount, some atoms of it might leach away into the water over a span of fifty years. And most of the water will probably be flushed away down the toilet or used to launder the clothes. Well, never mind. It's vital to the survival of the Republic and the human race that all lead be removed from plumbing solder. What difference does it make, you ask, in the practical terms of soldering a joint?

Lead/tin solder flowed readily into the joints. The silver alloy solder does not. It does, eventually, but not readily. And it has a poor time if there is old solder of the leaden variety on the pipe from some earlier work. It's a nuisance, but we have come to love adding nuisances to our simple existence. They make life worth living, and dying all the more welcome.

(To Be Continued...)