A faucet drip sounds like nothing. Then arithmetic arrives: a leak of one drip per second wastes more than 3,000 gallons of water a year, and the typical dripping faucet lands somewhere in that neighborhood while its owner gets used to the sound. Priced out, that is roughly $35 to $70 a year in water at average US rates — and double the effective waste when the drip is on the hot side, because every drop was heated before it escaped. Against that stands the repair: most leaky faucets are fixed by swapping a washer or a cartridge that costs between $5 and $15, in 20 to 45 minutes, with tools already in most kitchens. The job intimidates people out of proportion to its difficulty, and the intimidation is the expensive part. Here is the whole repair, in order.
What you need
- An adjustable wrench and a set of screwdrivers (flat and Phillips)
- A hex/Allen key set — many modern handles hide a set screw
- Plumber’s grease and replacement washers/O-rings, or the faucet’s cartridge
- A towel for the counter, a small cup for screws, and a plug or washcloth for the drain
- Your phone, for photographing each stage — the cheapest insurance in plumbing
Do not buy parts yet. The first step of the repair is identifying what is inside your faucet, and the part follows the diagnosis.
Step 1: Identify the faucet type and shut off the water
Faucets leak for a short list of reasons, and the type tells you which. Two-handle faucets are usually compression or cartridge designs: the drip comes from a worn rubber washer or a failing cartridge under the leaking handle. Single-lever faucets use a cartridge or a ball mechanism, and the wear parts are the cartridge and its O-rings and springs. In nearly every case the fix is a swap, not a repair of the worn piece itself. Now shut the water off. Under the sink there should be two angle-stop valves, one hot and one cold; turn the one for the side you are opening — or both — clockwise. Open the faucet to drain the pressure and confirm the water is truly off. If your sink has no shutoff valves, close the home’s main valve instead; if neither exists or a valve will not fully stop the flow, that is the first legitimate reason to call a plumber instead, and it appears again below. Lay the towel down, plug the drain so no screw can escape into it, and photograph the faucet as it stands.
Step 2: Open the faucet and remove the worn part
Pry off the decorative cap on the handle — a fingernail or thin flat screwdriver lifts it — and remove the screw beneath. Some handles instead use a hidden hex set screw on the underside; loosen it with the Allen key. Lift the handle off, wiggling gently rather than forcing. On a two-handle compression faucet, unscrew the packing nut and stem assembly with the wrench, and you will find the washer at the stem’s end, held by a small brass screw: that washer, hardened and grooved, is your drip. On cartridge faucets, remove the retaining clip or nut and pull the cartridge straight out — note its orientation before it moves, with your phone if needed, because cartridges seat in one direction only. Take the removed part with you to the hardware store. Staff there identify faucet parts all day and will hand you the right $5 to $15 repair kit or cartridge; if they cannot match it, the faucet may be old enough that replacing the whole unit — $50 to $150 for a decent one — is smarter than hunting extinct parts. The same counter visit covers how to unclog a drain without harsh chemicals if the sink’s other problem is a slow drain; the tools and the afternoon are already committed.
Step 3: Fit the new part and reassemble
Fit the new washer with its brass screw, or slide the new cartridge in exactly as the old one sat, aligned to its tabs or marks. A thin smear of plumber’s grease on O-rings and moving seals helps them seat and extends their life. Reassemble in reverse order, snug rather than forced — overtightening is how stems get stripped and new washers get chewed. If the leak was at the base of the spout rather than the spout tip, the culprit is usually the O-rings on the spout body: lift the spout off after removing its retaining nut, roll the old O-rings off, roll the greased new ones on. Before you declare victory, wipe everything dry with a paper towel; a dry surface makes the next step’s verdict unambiguous.
Step 4: Test like a skeptic
Open the shutoff valves slowly and watch the faucet — not just the spout tip but the handle bases and, with a flashlight, the cabinet below. Run hot and cold, then shut the faucet and wait a full minute, watching for the bead of water that announces a surviving drip. A drip that persists after a cartridge swap usually means grit in the line or a scored valve seat; flush the faucet with the aerator removed, and if the seat itself is pitted, a $10 seat-wrench and replacement seat — or a plumber — is the remaining answer. Small leaks teach the general lesson that the EPA’s Fix a Leak Week guidance repeats with national numbers: household leaks are common, mostly simple, and collectively enormous — which is why this modest repair is worth doing the week the drip starts, not the quarter it gets loud.
Diagnosing by drip location: tip, handle or base
Before opening anything, let the drip’s address narrow the suspects, because each location points at different parts. A drip from the spout tip with the handles off is the classic: a worn washer or cartridge on the supply side, exactly the repair detailed above. A leak that appears around a handle only when that handle is turned on implicates the stem’s O-rings or packing — open that handle, replace the O-ring or repack the packing nut, and the leak dies without touching the main seal. Water pooling at the faucet’s base on the countertop usually comes from the spout O-rings on a swiveling kitchen faucet, or from above — water splashed at the sink’s rim running under the fixture — so dry the counter, run the faucet, and watch whether the base wets from within or merely collects. Dampness inside the cabinet, finally, is a different case entirely: supply lines, angle stops or the drain are leaking, the faucet is innocent, and that diagnosis moves the job toward the call-a-plumber list below if the source is pressurized. Five minutes of watching a dry paper towel placed at each suspect point will localize a leak more reliably than an hour of guessing — plumbers diagnose this way too, they are simply faster at it.
When the swap is really a replacement
Sometimes the diagnosis ends at the faucet itself. Replace rather than repair when the finish is pitting or flaking (the corrosion is in the body, not the seals), when the manufacturer and its cartridges have vanished from the market, when the spout or body has cracked, or when a second repair follows the first within a year — the faucet is voting. Replacement is the same job one level up: shutoffs closed, supply lines disconnected, mounting nuts off, new faucet set on a bead of plumber’s putty or its gasket, lines reconnected, and a slow, watched first pressurization. Budget $50 to $150 for a decent unit and replace the supply lines while you are there if the old ones are stiff or corroded — lines are cheap, and their failure mode is the flood every other part of this article exists to prevent. Keep the old faucet’s paperwork and the new one’s model number in the house file; the next washer, ten years from now, will be identified in minutes instead of at a hardware counter.
When to stop and call a plumber
Four findings convert this job into a phone call. The shutoff valve will not stop the water, or is itself leaking. Pipes or fittings below the faucet are corroded, green-crusted or weeping — the faucet was not the only problem. The leak returns immediately after a correct part swap, pointing at the valve seat or the faucet body. Or the supply lines are old, stiff braided lines showing bulges or rust at the ferrules, in which case touching them risks a far bigger leak than the one you have. A plumber’s service call runs in the neighborhood of $150, and against a flooded cabinet, a ruined floor, or a burst line at 2 a.m., that is the bargain of the two. Everything short of those four findings, though, is a $6 washer, half an hour, and a silent sink — which, once you have heard it, sounds like money. It also sounds like the first repair most homeowners ever do, and the confidence it pays out spends in every room afterward.
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