Fixed my own faucet

J. says I should blog about this because I was so stoked at my success in fixing my own ball joint faucet. 

Saturday, I was cleaning up after cooking lunch and I noticed that the hot water was no longer coming out.  At all.  Since I spend a goodly amount of time every day washing dishes, this was not good.  I went into the bathroom to see if the hot water heater was the problem, but the sink and tub both had it, so that meant the kitchen faucet was the culprit.  It had been sort of leaking for awhile if you put any pressure on the handle too.  

So, being cheap and not wanting to "Call a plumber," as J. suggested, I scoped out the fixture.  The handle was affixed with a sort of octagonal screw (the kind presumably manufacturers use so that you have to buy one of those screwdriver bit sets).  Fortunately, I have a screwdriver bit set, and with only a few wrong picks, located the right bit.  Once I had the screw out, I had to unscrew the cap and the whole thing came out in my hand.  

Since I had turned the water off, this was not a problem, but it was then that I began to wonder if I'd be able to get this thing back on.  Or if we'd be going the whole weekend without water because I wasn't going to call the plumber on weekend rates.  

So I started fiddling with the fixture itself, and lo and behold, found out that it had parts.  Moving parts.  Moving parts that sort of fit together and that presumably would make it easier to stick back onto the faucet base.   A quick internet search yielded the diagram to your right, and I realized that amongst the parts in my hand, there were no little spring thingees.  Huh.  I went back in the kitchen and rooted around in the sink where I found, amidst the dirty dishes, one spring and one tiny spring cap.  When I inserted this into the hot water circle in the spout and reassembled the whole thing, I found I had hot water again and cold, but the cold water wouldn't turn off.  So gambling that I'd diagnosed the problem, I went to the hardware store and bought a set of springs and spring caps, then came home, and inserted one into the cold side of the spout, reassembled again, and voila!  It worked like a charm.  I had hot water, cold water, and no leakage.

Yay, me!  

What made me happiest about accomplishing this was not the $100 it saved me calling the plumber, but the feeling I got that I could do this, that I could operate independently, that I didn't actually need to ask someone (someone who would charge an arm and a leg) for help.  I could do it myself.  With an internet diagram and a willingness to tinker around a bit.  I haven't felt this good since I installed my own wireless network a year ago.  There are times when I seriously think I should have taken more practical courses in high school like shop and home ec.   Knowing how to do stuff, or where to start the process of learning how to do stuff would be far more valuable to me than all that Calculus I've since forgotten.