Bah.

[firstfrost]

• Decide to spend the day on which housemates are at work fixing the dripping bathtub faucet.
• Turn off water.
• Partially disassemble cold water faucet.
• Take faucet stem to Tags and ask what I should get.
• Salesman says "replace the washer here. It's a size 1/2" large, which we seem to be out of. (To digress, what sort of a numbering system goes 3/8, 3/8 large, 1/2, 1/2 large, 5/8, 5/8 large in sizes?)
• Go to Home Depot and buy 1/2" large washers and O ring thing.
• Come home. Swap washer and O ring.
• Turn on water. Note that faucet is now running rather than dripping.
• Turn off water. Wish there were a closer shutoff than basement.
• Decide this isn't actually a 1/2" large, it's a 5/8".
• Go back to Tags. They do have 5/8". I am briefly confused by the 5/8 large, as I had until then thought that "large" was a different diameter (thickness?).
• Come home. Swap washer again.
• Turn on water. Note that faucet is dripping more than it used to, though not running.
• Turn off water.
• Put the old O ring back. It was probably thinner than the new one.
• Turn on water. Note that it's dripping about as much as it used to.
• Wonder if it's actually the hot water faucet causing all the trouble.
• Turn off water.
• Partially take apart hot water faucet stem, but fail to be able to get the final bit out. (Interesting. I didn't take these two pieces apart at all in the cold water faucet. I didn't even know they *came* apart!). There's no way to get at the washer.
• Put hot water stem back together.
• Turn on water.
• Note that faucet is still dripping. Sigh.

Comments

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Followup: Jerry managed to get the hot water stem out, with a combination of WD40 and more strength, and the drip has finally stopped. I am still irrationally grumpy, because I couldn't do it myself. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Ah yes. I totally understand the feeling of wanting to do it yourself. But it's important to remember and acknowledge that you did all the initial debugging and leg work that led to the final solution. Teamwork. :-)

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

When I did this, they were out of the washer, but they did sell the whole valve stem. It solved the problem with minimal effort at a cost of ~$10.

When izmirian did this, his faucet was so old that the valve stem cost like $300 or something.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Had they had the whole thing, I would totally have bought it. :)

I very much appreciated the book that both Tags and Home Depot had of hundreds of pages of drawings of valve stems. 'Cause I had no clue what mine was. (Though as it turns out, I think I may have been wrong in my identification, because the one I thought it was also claimed 1/2L washers..)