ArcaMax

You may or may not know that not only am I a home builder, but I’ve also been a master plumber since age 29. I was drawn to the plumbing craft because of its fascinating three-dimensional nature. Your home has but one sewer pipe leaving your house, and often just one vent pipe poking up through your roof. However, in between these two points is a maze of interconnected pipes that all must work together to keep you and your family healthy.

Many aspects of residential plumbing are complex and difficult. Some are not. Most of the plumbing problems you encounter in your home, you can often fix yourself. My guess is you’re afraid to tackle the repair, thinking you’ll cause a leak that floods your home. You can save many hundreds of dollars if you start to do simple plumbing repairs yourself. Your confidence will grow like a dandelion in the warm spring New Hampshire sun!

I want to share with you a simple repair you can do yourself. I’m about to do the same job this week. I’m going to install a new laundry tray faucet. My existing one is about 25 years old. It has traditional rubber washers instead of washerless cartridges.

What’s more, my existing faucet all of a sudden started moving around as I operated the valves. The faucet came with a cheap galvanized metal retention nut that eventually rusted out. A high-quality faucet would have had a rust-proof brass nut, but I didn’t install this faucet. I didn’t build this home I live in.

The first step is to shut off the water to the faucet. I have a shutoff valve for the hot and cold water lines under my laundry sink. Rotating the handles clockwise shuts off the water. Test to ensure the water is off by then turning on your laundry faucet. If no water flows, you’re in great shape. If water is flowing, you’ll have to turn off the main water shutoff valve where water enters your home.

You only need three simple tools to replace a laundry tray faucet in almost all cases. I’ll be using a medium-sized adjustable wrench, a medium channel-lock pliers, and the all-important basin wrench.

A basin wrench is a tool that allows you to tighten and loosen the nuts that hold a faucet to a sink, as well as the nuts that connect the water-supply tubes to the bottom of the faucet. This wrench was designed to work in the narrow space between the back of a sink and the rear wall of a cabinet.

Its unique design features curved spring-loaded jaws that resemble the mouth of a fierce dinosaur. These jaws also swivel 180 degrees, allowing you to use the wrench to both loosen and tighten the nuts in the narrow space you’ll find yourself working in.

Seasoned plumbers often don’t use a basin wrench when installing a faucet for the first time. They’ll attach the faucet to the sink, when possible, before the sink is installed in the countertop. With the sink out of the countertop, you have easy access to the nuts that must be tightened. An ordinary adjustable wrench is all one needs in this situation. The plumber will often attach the water supply tubes to the bottom of the faucet at the same time.

My laundry sink is a wall-hung design. Gravity holds it on the wall using a clever French cleat hanger. I intend to disconnect my p-trap from the sink using the channel-lock pliers. I’ll also disconnect the flexible water supply lines from the shutoff valves. I’ll then just lift the entire sink straight up. I’ll then have easy access to the underside of the sink, allowing me to switch out my faucet in just minutes. I’ll install the new faucet and water supply lines to the faucet before rehanging the sink on the wall.

Let’s talk about the water supply tubes. These flexible pipes have come a long way in just 40 years. We had to use chrome-plated soft-copper supply tubes when I was an apprentice plumber. You had to cut them to the perfect length and bend them with precision. It was common for these to develop tiny leaks if you didn’t align the tubes perfectly.

Modern water supply lines are idiot-proof. They have internal rubber o-rings at each end. Leaks only happen if you just hand-tighten the nuts. Once you get the nuts hand-tightened, use an adjustable wrench to twist the nut an additional 180 degrees. It’s very simple.

It’s important to use a small amount of plumbers' putty under the body of your new faucet. My guess is your faucet with come with a plastic gasket that fits the bottom of the faucet body. A thin layer of plumbers' putty on the bottom of this gasket ensures water will not leak under the faucet and through the holes in the sink. This water, over time, can cause wood rot, mold and other problems.

Excess plumber’s putty will ooze out from under the gasket as you tighten the nuts that hold the faucet to the sink. Be sure these nuts are quite tight so the faucet doesn’t slide around on the top of your sink. Be careful about applying too much pressure if your sink is vitreous china. Aggressive plumbers have cracked china sinks by over-tightening these nuts.

Do you think you can do this job? I’m sure you can. If you need help over the phone, I’m there to guide you through this repair. You’ll save hundreds of dollars and you’ll feel fantastic once the job is complete and leak-free.

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©2025 Tim Carter. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.