How To Replace a Faucet

Simply Faucetnating

I’m officially adding plumber to my repertoire of skills this week. We decided to upgrade our kitchen this month and we got the cabinets painted and replaced the hardware pulls. I wasn’t going to take on painting the cabinets myself so I hope you can give me a hall pass on that one… one step at a time here.

But I will admit I was pretty intimidated to dabble in the world of plumbing. I just imagine myself twisting a nob and flooding the house.

My entire childhood I thought faucet was pronounced flossit- so that should give you an idea on my expertise level.

The reality is, changing a faucet is actually SO EASY. Shout out to this girl (I think from Canada??) on YouTube who did a video that taught me the essentials, but I’ll walk you through it.

I got a Vigo faucet as well… I guess you can say it’s the “cool” hardware company for bathrooms and kitchens. Didn’t know that really existed in this industry. We tried going to Home Depot to choose a faucet, but let me tell ya the selection is limited and they have a bigger selection online! There is really no point in fighting the crowds during Covid when there’s more to choose from online. It’s also easier to do price comparisons online because sites such as Amazon and Build.com have similar options.

So the faucet came in the mail, had beautiful, sexy packaging and I looked at my fiancé and said, “I’m so excited! We’re doing this tonight.” After a long day at work, he looked at me like I was crazy. He suggested hiring a plumber and was convinced we would butcher the job. I told him I had watched this Canadian girl that did it on this random video and that we could do it in an hour- he was NOT put at ease.

Well, spoiler alert! We did do it in an hour and I even cooked my favorite salmon recipe for dinner after and got to bed by 10 pm. This is what we call winning these days.

Here’s a breakdown of how we did it. Or how I did it with the help of my fiancé…

My instructional manual is also in layman’s terms… as I don’t know the correct name for most of this shit. Also, this was for one-hole faucet installation. If your faucet is 2-4 holes… it will be similar to this, but you’ll probably want to reference your own instructions.

How to Replace Your Faucet Hardware

1) Prep. Take everything out under the sink, lay a towel down and grab a bucket because ya never know.

2) Turn off the water. If you don’t… well, I don’t even feel bad for you. Enjoy your bath. Your plumbing system will have a hot and cold water knob that you can twist to turn off and on right under the sink. (I initially thought I would have to find these knobs on the side of the house. I feel very dumb.) It should be marked or labeled with colors and/or arrows. Just twist the knobs, test your current sink to see if the water is still running. If it’s not, you are in the clear.

3) Remove your current sink. Unscrew the hot and cold water hoses of the old faucet from the knobs of your plumbing system. If you have a pull-down hose spray, you’ll want to remove that black weight that’s attached to the pull-down hose itself under the sink (usually it has a little clip or screws) and disconnect it. Once everything is disconnected, just pull the old faucet all out through the top of the counter and sell it on Next Door. If I’m not making sense, this what a pull-down hose sink looks like:

4) Cleanse the sediment. Take one of the hoses (from your new or old sink) and attach it to your cold water source. Turn the water on and flush the water into the bucket. Repeat for the hot water. Think of this as a little reset for the system.

5) Take a break from hanging out under your kitchen/bathroom counter. Attach your new h/c hoses to the corresponding connections of the new faucet. Makes more sense when you watch the Canadian video. Before you screw the hot water hose to the faucet’s hot water connector, you have to wrap the screw end with pipe tape. The tape must be put on clockwise. The faucet manufacturer should provide this special tape in the box with your new faucet. I found another great Australian video to explain pipe tape application.

I loved him so much. Aussies are just the best, why do they have the best DIY videos?

So the bottom of your new faucet will look like this: Taped up and ready to go!

Now you can connect the hot and cold water hoses that come with your faucet. Just twist them on! Use a wrench to tighten. Think of these hoses like your extension chords to the new faucet.

6) Remove/twist off the 3 round screws from the base of your new faucet. Remember the order in which you pull them off because you have to twist them back on later in the same order. There are going to be 3 rings. See below she’s first pulling off the gold one below.

7) Insert your faucet into the hole of your counter and thread the hoses through! YAY!

8) Once you have the faucet secured and positioned correctly you will go under the sink and thread and then screw a “triangle plastic piece” up (comes in the box with your new faucet) on the bottom of the counter to hold the sink in place.

Then you secure that plastic piece with the rings you just took off in step 6. Screw those 3 rings back up on the bottom of the sink under the counter. Remember the order in which they came off! Use a wrench to tighten. Now your faucet is secure! Watch the Canadian video at 4 mins and 30 seconds in to understand this process better.

9) If your faucet has a sprayer hose, you’ll have the extra pull-down hose connected to your new faucet already and you just have to loop it into the connecting piece that will be indicated on your faucet instructions. This hose is already connected to the hardware so it’s just putting the end of the hose into the hole. Like this: `

Then you add on your weight we talked about earlier. The weight helps your sprayer hose retract back after using it. I had no idea that’s how that worked my entire life. Side note: make sure this weight isn’t going to bump into anything under the sink or get caught on anything when you’re pulling out the spray on your faucet.

10) Now you’re ready to connect your hot and cold water hoses from the new faucet to your plumbing. You must put on the pipe tape onto the screw end of your water connections like we did earlier. Do this counterclockwise. Then you can screw each hose to the corresponding pipe in your plumbing. Use a wrench to tighten.

11) Turn on the water for hot and cold pipes and party!

Now test the water, make sure hot and cold are both working properly and the water pressure is ok. Also, make sure the hoses don’t bend and prevent water flow. This tricked us the first time we turned the water back on.

There you have it! Brand new faucet and no plumber bill $$$.

See my new faucet below! My little kitty loves it too.

Now let that SINK in.