Kitchen Accessories

Before you consider calling in for commercial help to repair, kitchen faucets look at what is involved in repairing the faucets you have.

The initial common challenge you are tasked with when doing a home repair is to open the kitchen faucet mechanism itself. To this you have to unscrew the Allen ***** that holds it all together. If you can’t unscrew the Allen ***** to remove the handle from the rotary ball on the faucet. Not so fast, you should not consider giving up and going to purchase a completely new faucet? No. Don’t let that 15cent item drive you into buying a $90| faucet unit now! Normally you will have to remove the faucet handle to get to the worn rubber seats that started the drip in the first place.

First try spraying the ***** with penetrating oil every day for a few days. Then try turning the ***** again to see if it’ll come loose or not. If this doesn’t do the trick, or if you finally break the head of the Allen screw, next you will have to try to drill out the Allen *****. To do this use a drill bit about the same radius as or slightly smaller than the ***** and work slowly or you’ll break the faucet handle and have to replace it, but it’s well worth the try it if you can save the faucet valve inside. As a last resort attempt, you can just unwind the cap with the faucet handle still connected.

If the Allen ***** is stuck, or if you strip it so it will no longer come out, then just unscrew the cap with the faucet handle in place. You can’t grasp the flattened rim with the faucet handle in place. Instead, cushion the plier jaws and grab the round edge underneath.

This is tricky, because you cannot easily grab the flat edge of the cap, with the edge that’s shaped for the pliers. ensure that you cushion the jaws well when you grab the smooth, rounded body of the cap. It is best to use rubber tape, because then youwon’t crush the cap too hard. Gently Move the cap counter clockwise to unscrew it. The assembly that you remove will now have the faucet handle, cap, cam, packing and ball.

The following is to release the ball from the stem. The Allen ***** clamps onto the stem. Try grabbing it with the pliers and twisting it slowly. The goal is to pull apart the parts so that you can recover and use the cap over . You’ll still need to purchase a new faucet handle and a faucet repair kit that will include a new ball.

If this doesn’t succeed, the only alternative is to change out the entire faucet. Don’t give up, this is a challenging fix.

By: Pier E Basson

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