the nob on my bathroom hot water wont turn unless i seriously put all my strength in it i dont want to struggle with it every morning how do i lossen it up a bit please help
Bathroom tap question
- Thread starter MadonnaLove
- Start date
lomotil may be right if the washer has split and jammed itself against the cartridge.
Not knowing which style of faucet you have, or how old it is, makes it difficult to diagnose. Most or all cartridges are lubricated with some sort of grease and if your faucets are old, the grease may have broken down or dried up. This would make it difficult to turn the tap or knob. If they are old, you may want to consider replacing the faucets.
Not knowing which style of faucet you have, or how old it is, makes it difficult to diagnose. Most or all cartridges are lubricated with some sort of grease and if your faucets are old, the grease may have broken down or dried up. This would make it difficult to turn the tap or knob. If they are old, you may want to consider replacing the faucets.
Agree with lomotil and bcd. Please send us a picture or find something similar on google images. If you can identify the manufacturer and model (it may be stamped on the taps), please provide.
Assuming you have taps with separate hot/cold. Simplified: The knob is attached to a coarse screw with a washer on the end. As you turn the knob, the screw goes up or down and the washer is forced against a hole that lets the water flow or not. Here's a picture, this might not be your tap, but most are all built basically the same way.
The most likely problem is a worn/jammed washer, but it could also be a problem with the screw that holds the washer in (the bottom/right of picture) or it could be a foreign object (broken part of the tab) that is jammed into the course screw or washer area.
I suggest you turn the water off and pull the assembly out - this can be done with hand tools (use the right tool though). It should be pretty obvious what the problem is. Assuming you can identify the manufacturer of the tap, you can go to Home Depot or a plumbing supplier and buy the washer (universal) and /or whole assembly (manufacturer dependent, but there are also universal replacement parts) and replace the needed parts, relube the assembly and re-install.
This is an easy thing to do, but if you're not comfortable doing it yourself, any handyperson (politically correct term!) can handle this. Using a plumber would be overkill. Lots of videos on YouTube that can provide a demo. Depending on the vintage of your taps, it might be a good time to replace the taps themselves.
If indeed your facet is the kind illustrated so kindly above by Promo, I severely doubt it's just the washer or the screw. The washer is just rubber and over time they will deteriorate from use. Usually as the washer wears out, what happens is that the tap drips and you have to reef on the thing to get it to stop dripping, which of course only makes it worse AND it can bend the valve stem as shown in the diagram above. A worn out washer can break into little pieces, it just gets pushed out the facet (where it gets trapped by the aerator).
So the question is, "have you been turning it harder and harder in order to get it to stop dripping?"
If the answer to the above question is yes, then you've bent the valve stem and the clearances are all cucked up. Replacing the valve stem on an older facet can be just about impossible since they are all unique to their manufacturer and model and odds are they have not been produced in years.
The reason that the cold is worse than the hot is because the hot water causes the brass to expand under the hot water temperature, increasing the clearance between the stem and the packing nut. Cold has the opposite effect, everything contracts and gets harder to turn.
If the faucet is a cheap one or old, the best fix is to simply replace the facet in its entirety.
So the question is, "have you been turning it harder and harder in order to get it to stop dripping?"
If the answer to the above question is yes, then you've bent the valve stem and the clearances are all cucked up. Replacing the valve stem on an older facet can be just about impossible since they are all unique to their manufacturer and model and odds are they have not been produced in years.
The reason that the cold is worse than the hot is because the hot water causes the brass to expand under the hot water temperature, increasing the clearance between the stem and the packing nut. Cold has the opposite effect, everything contracts and gets harder to turn.
If the faucet is a cheap one or old, the best fix is to simply replace the facet in its entirety.
Oh yeah? I challenge you to prove us all wrong. Take your WD-40 and duct tape (that was funny BTW) over to Madonna's place, fix the problem for free and let us know what was wrong. I think you are all talk and you have bad breath (what movie was that line from?)
Madonna, if this cheap ego trick actually works, you owe me.
