A bathroom faucet that drips has a worn cartridge or stem seal; one that leaks into the vanity is usually leaking internally through the body and is not repairable. The complaint is often the pop-up drain assembly rather than the faucet at all. Nearly every one of these calls also involves the angle stops beneath the sink, which seize open and will not isolate the fixture, and the P-trap, which has to come down and go back up to fit a new pop-up.
Why a bathroom faucet drips or runs non-stop
Bathroom fixtures work harder than people think — several short cycles a day, every day — and they fail in a small number of recognizable ways.
- A steady drip with the handle closed
- The cartridge or stem seal is worn. On a single-lever fixture that is one part; on a three-piece set it is whichever side drips. Repairable when the part can be sourced.
- Running non-stop and will not shut down
- We have been called to a bathroom sink fixture running continuously, and found the stops beneath it seized and broken, so the water could not even be isolated at the fixture to work on it.
- Leaking internally into the vanity
- A worn body rather than a single seal. One fixture that failed this way had already damaged the inside of the cabinet and the carpet outside it before anyone noticed. There is no part for this — the body is the fixture.
- Water on the floor with a dry fixture
- Look at the drain. An evening leak search once traced water seeping up through a basement floor to a waste pipe under the vanity that had separated at the joint, on an ABS trap whose metal slip nuts were corroding.
- A stiff handle, or black grit in the water
- Debris in the valve. On one visit the stops under the bathroom sink were stiff and pushed black debris out when tested, and deteriorating copper above the water heater was found in the same walkthrough.
- Poor flow at one basin only
- Aerators. We have replaced clogged bathroom aerators as their own small repair, and had to chase a matching aerator through a supplier where the fixture was obscure.
Three-piece (widespread) and single-lever bathroom faucets
The style on the basin changes the repair, the parts and the work involved, so it is worth naming which one you have when you call.
| Style | How it fails | What the work involves |
|---|---|---|
| Single-lever, one hole | One cartridge; body and base seals | The simplest swap or rebuild. Moen single-lever units in chrome, brushed nickel and matte black are what we fit most often. |
| Three-piece / widespread | Either stem cartridge; the spout and its under-deck connections | Three penetrations, two supply connections and a spout coupling under the counter. More time, and more likely to need the basin or vanity cleared for access. |
| Two-handle centerset | Stems, seats and washers | Often rebuildable with a stem kit, provided the seat is not pitted. |
| Wall-mounted or condominium trim | Valve behind the wall rather than at the basin | Access has to be opened. This is closer to a shower faucet and valve repair than a basin swap. |
Widespread sets are where the parts question bites hardest. We have installed owner-supplied widespread sets at both basins of a master bathroom and had to supply brushed nickel pop-up assemblies ourselves, because the ones in the box were plastic.
When the stops under a bathroom sink will not close
This is the finding that changes the shape of a bathroom fixture call more often than anything else, and it is worth understanding before a technician tells you about it in your own bathroom.
- Seized open. Angle stops sit untouched for decades and then refuse to turn. On one call the valves were frozen and broken, so the water had to be shut off to the entire condominium unit before the fixture could be changed — and more broken valves turned up once the unit was checked.
- Shut off by the building. In a condominium, where a fixture cannot be isolated, the association has to shut the building water down at a scheduled time. We coordinate that rather than surprising anyone.
- Broken and leaking. On a dripping three-piece fixture, both stops beneath the basin were found broken and leaking; on another call both had failed and two more were failing in the upstairs hall bathroom.
- Left in poor condition by others. One previous installer had left the old pop-up assembly out of the drain altogether. Another had set a vanity with silicone instead of caulk.
- Failing everywhere at once. A basin complaint is often the first visible symptom of a house-wide problem. One bathroom call turned into ten stops replaced across four bathrooms.
Old multi-turn stops are replaced with quarter-turn valves and metal braided supply lines, and the system is drained down to do it. When several are failing at once the cause is usually pressure — see water pressure, PRVs and shut-off valves.
Pop-up drains and P-traps come with a bathroom faucet swap
On a kitchen sink the fixture and the drain are separate jobs. On a basin they are not, because the pop-up rod runs through the back of the fixture and down into the drain body.
- The trap comes down and goes back up. Fitting a new pop-up assembly means dropping and reinstalling the P-trap. That is routine on these jobs, not an extra.
- Plastic pop-ups get replaced with metal. Owner-supplied fixtures frequently ship with a plastic pop-up. We fit a metal assembly instead.
- Glued traps get converted. One basin had a glued PVC trap. It was converted to a tubular trap on a trap adapter, with the adapter oriented sideways rather than vertically so it can be serviced in future.
- Mixed-metal traps get remade. Metal traps joined into PVC corrode at the junction. We have found exactly that under a condominium basin and remade the connection properly.
- Waste arms get replaced. Where the stub in the wall is failing, the waste pipe is cut back and remade with a trap adapter and a threaded tailpiece extension.
- Broken pop-ups are their own call. We have been out for nothing more than a broken pop-up and stopper assembly, and replaced it as its own repair.
If the basin or the drain line is the real problem, that is bathroom sink repair and installation.
Can a bathroom faucet be rebuilt, or is it a replacement?
A rebuild is the better outcome and we test for it first. It holds when three things are true: the body is sound and not corroded, the fault is a single seal or cartridge, and the part can be bought.
It fails when the fixture is leaking through the body itself, when the fixture is rusting out — one hallway basin fixture was rusting out with stops that would not turn, and both went — or when the fixture is an unsupported model. On several calls the inspection has concluded plainly that the fixture needed replacement rather than repair, and saying so on the first visit is cheaper for you than a rebuild that fails in a month.
Where several basins in a house are the same age, they usually reach the same point together. We have replaced four bathroom fixtures in one property in a single visit — a powder room, two in a master bathroom and one in a hall bathroom — and dropped and reset four traps to fit them.
Off-brand bathroom faucets and the parts problem
We check parts availability before recommending anything. On one dripping three-piece set the fixture details went to the supplier and came back as an off-brand unit with no parts available at all; the recommendation was a widespread replacement from a brand with a live parts channel.
That is why our own replacements standardize on Moen — chrome, brushed nickel and matte black, single-lever and three-piece — and why we will tell you plainly when a fixture you like is a dead end for service. If you have bought a fixture yourself, we will install it; we will also tell you what we think of the pop-up assembly in the box.
Pedestal, wall-hung and vanity sinks change the bathroom faucet job
Access is the whole story on a basin, and the basin type decides how much of it there is.
- Vanity basins. Usually the easiest, until the cabinet fights back. On one job the vanity shelf had to be cut in half and removed to reach the connections at all.
- Pedestal sinks. Little room to work and the trap is on display. We fit bag traps where the pedestal demands it, and the baseboard behind the pedestal sometimes has to come off.
- Wall-hung sinks. On one powder room the wall-hung basin had to be taken off the wall and reinstalled simply in order to set the new fixture.
- Condominium units. Isolation is the constraint rather than space, and the building's shut-off schedule sets the timetable.
If you are changing the vanity at the same time, that is worth saying up front — we install owner-supplied vanities and tops, repair and paint the wall behind the old one, and set new baseboard and shoe molding where the old unit hid damage.
Low pressure or a stiff handle at the bathroom sink
Low pressure at one basin is almost never the house. On a call about low pressure at a bathroom sink, the loss traced to the fixture itself, and replacing it — rather than repiping anything — solved it, with other failing valves in the house found and replaced in the same visit.
Low pressure at every fixture at once is a different problem and points at the supply side: the pressure reducing valve, the main shut-off, or a line that has frozen or corroded. We gauge the incoming pressure on these calls as a matter of course, and where copper is deteriorating we cut out and replace the affected section — see pipe repair and leak detection.
What bathroom faucet replacement costs, and how it is priced
There is no phone price and no published number, because the basin is the small part of the job. Two identical fixtures can sit over sound quarter-turn stops and a clean trap, or over seized angle stops, a corroding mixed-metal trap, a missing pop-up assembly and a building that has to schedule its water shut-off.
An estimator comes to the property, looks under the sink, and gives you a written price before any work begins. Where the work extends into supply piping or new valves, we pull and process the permit, perform the work to the Virginia building code and close out with a county final inspection. Sam & Sons Services has served Northern Virginia since 1999 under Virginia DPOR license number 2705070610. If the toilet in the same room needs attention, see toilet repair and installation, and the parent page is faucet repair and replacement.
