Stainless Steel Sink & Faucet (Sara)

Stainless Steel Sink & Faucet (Sara's house)

Spent the day tearing out old double sink.  A water filter spout went out with it. Clipped the line, which was much like the line to an icemaker and screwed in the tap in the basement where it had been tapped into a cold water pipe.  That appeared to stop it, which was fortuitous.  Could have created another job.

The old countertop has burn marks and some divots and I created a couple more along the edge of the cutout which I had to widen about 1/2-inch all the way around to make room for the attachment tracks beneath the new sink.  Couldn't talk her into a new countertop, so I did the best I could with jigsaw and skilsaw and hand saw.  Took a lot of time, probably two hours, to do that using masking tape and measuring very carefully.

The garbage disposal port and bracket went on easily with plumbers putty and the drain for the other side had a rubber gasket, which went on equally smoothly.

The clamps that fit in the tracks below worked well and I was able to get them all secured beneath and a good bead of top of the line silicone sealant above, which Sara cleaned the edges of as I tightened clamps beneath.  

The feeds hooked up to the risers with no problem and the shutoffs were good.  Another potential job averted.  She had gotten a Moen single-hole faucet which was pretty cut-and-dried.  An O-ring clip snaps to a single tube that comes back up thru the spout and allows the end to snap off and be used as a rinser.  Pretty common nowadays.  

I had to pretty much redesign the drains because the disposal was a different shape.  We went and got some PVC parts and when it was almost done, we were short one female pressure nut, so had to drive to Janesville, get Arby's and the nut.  

Once together and tightened, we fired it up.  Everything I did worked with no drips, but wouldn't you know the snap-on O-ring dripped a little bit, intermittently and of course only when the faucet was turned on.  It was so slow that we put a tupperware container beneath and decided to just watch it.  In the morning she tried it and said no dripping, so maybe the O-ring just had to seat.

If dripping recurs, I have two things to try before sending for a replacement.  1) a bit of teflon tape at the top screw-on of the spout.  It could be dripping there and running down the tube to below, and 2) putting a little vaseline on the O-ring and seeing if that helps seat it.  I routinely do this with O-rings, but it wasn't called for so I didn't want to. Maybe should've.

All in all, pretty much a success especially if no more drips.