Many kitchen faucets become loose where they connect to the sink after many uses. After years of pulling out the faucet sprayer or pushing the spout from one side of the sink to the other, the faucet develops a little play in it. Eventually it will grow to a wobble and will seem like it is ready to slide off of the sink. It seems that this happens more with sinks that have a little flex in them, such as a thin stainless steel sink. If, for example, the faucet spout is hard to move, the flexibility in the sink seems to encourage the faucet to become loose.
So how do you fix it? It's actually pretty easy. You are going to have to climb under the sink and get access to the faucet. The faucet is held to the sink by any one of several methods, which all clamp the faucet to the sink with threaded nuts. On more expensive single-handle faucets you may have only one large nut located in the center of the faucet.
Whichever style you have, it is a matter of tightening these nuts. In most cases you can do this with just your fingers, but you may need a wrench if the space is small.
If you have a kitchen sink with deep bowls, you may not be able to get your hands into the small space afforded for the faucet. In this case use a basin wrench and tighten the faucet to the sink.
Kitchen faucet sprayers tend to leak, especially the cheap ones. This may be a case of you get what you pay for. It seems to be the builder-grade faucets with the side-mounted sprayers that give the most problems. There are 2 problem areas; one where the sprayer connects to the hose, and the other where the hose connects to the faucet body.
In many cases, if you look under the kitchen cabinet and see water dripping off of the hose it may as simple as tightening the sprayer head where it connects to the hose. The builder-grade faucets use a vinyl hose that twists, and in many cases after you use it there is some torque in the hose that causes it to come loose from the handle. This is a quick fix by screwing the handle tight to the hose. If necessary, you can replace the washer in the handle and use some liquid soap as a lubricant to get a good tight fit. The same goes for the connection at the hose to the faucet body.
The worst case is that you have to replace the faucet sprayer. You can buy the builder-grade models at any home center, but the higher quality sprayers may have to be ordered, or you may get lucky at a plumbing supply house.
While at a neighbor's house, I noticed a very nice kitchen faucet with a pull-out spout that allow them to spray both sink basins. I'm guessing this was a $400.00 faucet. The husband installed it but he couldn't pull the spout out very far and he didn't know why. Looking below the sink told the story. Sometimes it seems that a las vegas handyman never has free time.
Faucets with pull-out sprayers are more expensive as the sprayer pulls out of the faucet itself, not the kind that sits next to the faucet. You end up having the hose run through the faucet and loop into the sink cabinet only to reconnect to the body of the faucet. So you have this hose that loops down to the cabinet floor and back up, and it tends to get caught on everything under the sink. Most commonly, it will get caught on the drain piping or the water shut-off valves.
Most manufacturers will include a small weight that holds the sprayer head into the faucet body. Without this, the sprayer head would typically just pop out of the faucet and dangle in the air. This weight comes in two pieces and just sandwiches around the hose about 6 inches from where it changes direction and begins to loop back upward.
The neighbor had 2 problems. He didn't have the weight installed on the hose (because he didn't read the instructions), and the hose was getting caught on the discharge pipe to the garbage disposal (here are some general instructions on how to install a faucet).Adding the weight was an easy fix, but I also had him add a small section of hollow PVC piping over the hose. Yes he had to take apart the faucet sprayer to slide the 10" pipe over the hose but the problem is solved. The hollow pipe provides a barrier so that the hose can't get tangled when it is being lifted out of the faucet. Since it is under the sink, nobody will ever see it.
A customer's kitchen faucet leak was driving her crazy. It was leaking around the handle and she was ready to surrender. Kitchen faucet leaks can come from several places which makes fixing them a little more challenging.
If your faucet leaks from underneath the sink, it may be corroded and you will likely be buying a new one, or may be a water supply line in need of repair. If the faucet leaks out of the end of the spout when the handle is shut off (particularly with a single-handle faucet), you probably need a new cartridge in the faucet.
This customer's faucet was a single handled Moen and was leaking when you lifted the handle to turn it on...is was leaking around the handle base very slowly. This usually means a problem with some O-rings that are supposed to keep water leaks at bay.
To access the O-rings, you have to remove the handle. Slide a small screwdriver under the decorative cap and remove the screw. The handle will lift right off. The spout covers the O-rings, one at the top and one at the bottom. The spout assembly will lift off of the faucet body, and you will clearly see the O-rings.
You can buy an assortment of O-rings that will replace these. Match up the correct size and place them into the grooves. I like to slather them up with liquid soap to lubricate them so they won't twist when re-installing the spout assembly. You can test it once you put the handle back on.
How many times have you wrestled with a loose faucet on top of your sink? It seems to happen most often with single handled faucets...as you lift the lever up to start to flow of water, the entire faucet moves to the point you almost have to hold the faucet body with one hand while to lift the lever with the other. That's not to say that is doesn't happen to faucets with separate hot and cold handles, they have their problems too.
Typically, the problem is that the nut holding the faucet to the sink is loose. You will have to crawl under the sink to access this area, but it's not difficult. Once under the sink you will see the water supply lines going up to the faucet. Look just beyond these and you will see how the faucet attaches to the sink. Some faucets have two nuts that hold the faucet to the sink, and some have one large nut that holds it down. Usually it's the faucets with the one large nut that causes the most problems.
Ideally, a basin wrench will fix this in a matter of seconds, but you can use whatever you have access to...pliers, or even a crescent wrench.
I've also seen a cheap sink as the cause. A cheap stainless steel sink (the really thin kind) will allow the faucet to move as you operate it. Although the faucet may be tight to the sink, the thin sink will flex to the point that it seems the faucet is loose, but its not.
For bathroom sink widespread faucets that have two handles, sometimes the handles feel loose. For these types of handles, if the nuts under the sink are tight, try using your hand and turning the handle body clockwise above the sink. That should tighten it up nicely; this also works for bathtub widespread faucets.
If you are tired of the old faucet, here is some information on how to replace a faucet.