Ain't Quite Mr. Plumber
Since the day I moved into my house, my bathroom sink's been dripping. Oy, it's driving me crazy. Last night I realized how the top screws on, so today I took my wrench, took the top off, and tried to figure out how to change the washers.
No washers. I took the whole conglomeration of plastic pieces over to the hardware store, where the guy took a hex wrench, took the top off, showed me how the plastic pieces were a complete assembly, and handed me a replacement cartridge. Ten bucks. Plus fifty cents for the wrench. Ten bucks. Geez. Two freaking orders of magnitude more expensive than a washer.
I go home to try to figure out how to put this whole thing back together. It actually doesn't take too much effort. The hole is cylindrical, and the cartridge has a tab sticking out that fits into a slot in the faucet. So I shove the cartridge in, screw the retaining ring on, and turn on the shut-off valves. Doesn't work. I can turn the water on, but when I push the handle back down, the water keeps flowing. Put the old cartridge back in, it works. New cartridge, nope.
Screw it. So I put the old cartridge back in. Now I can shut off the water, but trying to turn the water on full blast just ends up giving me a trickle.
I'm getting tired of this sink. The water comes out back and to the right. It's not the aerator--the socket that the aerator screws into is itself pointing the wrong direction. I think it's time for a new faucet.
Yeah, I've done that before. And I learned my lesson:
Never screw metal nuts onto a plastic pipe. They tend to cut their own threads.