It depends on how quickly you can remove the old faucet as well as the number of other problems that will pop up along the way such as hidden nuts, corroded pipes, and inadequate access to fittings among other things. Nevertheless, replacing a kitchen faucet is not a tough job, and in most cases, you will only need the instructions that come with your new faucet. Barring the hitches above, you could be using your kitchen faucet with an hour or less.
Before you start, you may need to take the following preparatory measures to increase your chance of completing this task sooner.
Check faucet valve
Table of Contents
Every faucet has a check valve, which allows water to flow only in one direction. Most importantly, check valves also help prevent cold or hot water from flowing through the faucet when you want to use either type of water.
So before you obtain a new faucet, make sure that your sink has shutoff valves that feed water to the faucet. Just get under your sink, and you will be able to access the valves.
If there are shutoff valves, make sure they work correctly and if there are none, make sure you add them in your shopping list.
When buying a check faucet valve, it is significantly essential to formulate a cost-benefit analysis of your system. Always focus on reducing costs while concurrently obtain the lowest potential pressure loss. Unfortunately, higher safety most often than not translates to a higher pressure loss. Therefore, for the check valve to be able to protect your system correctly, you need to assess each order separately.
Supply tubes
Besides assessing your check valves, you also need to measure the supply tubes and replace them with steel-sleeved ones, which are designed to offer break-free service for many years and can also be installed around objects without kinking.
How to replace kitchen faucet
Shut off the water
Before starting to work on your faucet, you should first disconnect both cold and hot water pipes to the faucet. In most systems, all you have to do is twist on and off the valves on cold and hot water supply pipes, using your fingers.
Occasionally, especially if your faucet is old, the valves will be rusted, making it extremely difficult to budge. If that is the case, a little heating of the rusty valve with a hairdryer will loosen it. Or you can use pliers to coax it “Off”.
Sometimes you may not be able to locate the valve, in which case shut off the water supply at the meter.
Disconnect the drain lines from the kitchen sink faucet
Remove the drain lines as well as P-traps if they prevent you from accessing the faucet and water pipes. But make sure you know how the pipes were arranged so that you don’t have a hard time putting them back together.
Remove garbage disposer
Disconnect the garbage disposer, as well as the dishwasher discharge pipe and paint, can or a bucket underneath the garbage disposer. Discharge the disposer by gentle patter on the retaining ring using a hammer in a counterclockwise motion.
Remove any item you might have stored under your sink to create space for you to work on the faucet. If you can’t access the faucet, make your way through by dismantling the objects interfering.
In most cases, the main objects blocking you will be P-traps and pipes that drain your sink. Pull them out if necessary.
Using the basin wrench, lose the existing faucet, and yank it out.
Replace the old faucet with the new faucet by following the directions provided on the label and then attach back the sink with the new faucet and connect the water lines.
Special considerations
You can take as few as ten minutes to replace your kitchen faucet depending on the number of obstacles you will encounter during the whole operation. Remember, removing the existing faucet is most often the challenging part. Besides the objects blocking your path, the space beneath the sink where the faucet is located is typically narrow as well as pitch black.
The floor under the sink is usually several inches higher than the floor of the kitchen, so be prepared to contort your back to compensate for the difference in height, which might be painful. To ease the discomfort, consider using a scrap of plywood underneath the sink.