Tag Archives: broken faucet

“Three Dollar Fix” By Chad Robert Parker

I’m the first one to admit that I am not a handyman. I am thrifty, however. If a fix sounds easy enough I will attempt a do-it-yourself project.

My tub spout started leaking. I worried that the drip might be mostly going back into the wall, so I purchased a new spout and went to work. When you have followed every instruction to the “T” and it still leaks, that’s when you know you really have a problem. What do you do then? I checked “google” to see if any others experienced the same complication. None had. Online videos showed that the task was easy enough. No one seemed to have had any trouble, whatsoever, with the three dollar fix. Although, as I investigated further, I realized I did have a similar problem as others. Turns out my original leak was actually coming from above in the handle. There was one of two possibilities. One would require a professional the other one was another DIY option. I took the handle off and found out I would have to call a plumber after all.

The dumbest part about it was that the piece I chose to “fix” was not broken until I messed around with it and squished the O-ring to death. And then my test run caused my worst fear as it was re-directing water right back into the wall and down into my neighbor’s closet ceiling below me. I apologized to her and offered to fix any issues there, for what that is worth, but thankfully we caught it before there was any lasting damage. I’m certain if there were a problem we would be turning to the professionals on that one, also, rather than continuing the do-it-yourself domino effect to our own detriment.

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