My bathroom faucet swap turned into a 6 hour ordeal

I figured replacing an old faucet in my guest bathroom would be a quick Saturday morning job, maybe 2 hours tops. But the supply lines were completely seized up from hard water buildup, and I spent the first hour just trying to get the nuts loose with penetrating oil and a basin wrench. Then the new faucet didn't fit the weird offset holes in my 1970s sink deck, so I had to file down the mounting plate. Anybody else run into hidden surprises that made a simple repair drag on forever?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_hart47d agoMost Upvoted

105 degrees in my garage that day. I was swapping out a kitchen faucet and the old supply lines had those plastic nuts that just crumbled the second I touched them with a wrench. Spent the next hour chipping pieces out of the threads with a pick and a lot of swearing. Then the new faucet's quick connect hose was about three inches too short to reach the shutoff valve under the cabinet. Had to run to the hardware store twice because I kept guessing wrong on the adapter size. By the time I got it all buttoned up, my back was killing me and I had a whole new appreciation for whoever designed these things to be a pain in the ass.

john_fisher7d ago

Honestly, "weird offset holes" is the kind of thing that makes me want to just buy a whole new sink. I spent three hours once trying to make a modern faucet work with a 1960s sink deck, and the holes were so far apart the escutcheon plate looked like a big silver belly button. If you mentioned filing down the mounting plate, I bet you wished you had just grabbed a universal-fit supply line kit from the start. Those little hard water surprises are always what turn a two-hour job into an entire Saturday.