The Leak Business

I’m a writer, not ordinarily in the leak business. Today’s piece is supposed to be about Curtis Yarvin, AKA Mencius Moldbug, but that story will have to wait. Did you know he’s the son of a Foreign Service Officer? So much to cover there, but today I’m in the leak business.

Dread words greeted me this morning, a Sunday, my day for cooking dinner: Do you think you’ll be able to fix the faucet today? Coincidentally, this morning also found me accused of exposing plumber butt, something about my posture and my shorts being out of position.

It’s fair enough. The spigot’s been dripping for a couple weeks now. This isn’t neglect on my part, just out of sight out of mind. It’s not a sink I use and that’s not my stuff in the vanity below.

But amid wildfires and floods and the needs of fish and turtles and dolphins, wasting our fluoridated town water seems an extravagant shirk. So, yes, I’ll look into it, I’ll explore the mysteries of how and why this faucet is leaking.

These are the mysteries. Is it the hot side or the cold side? I’ll have to shut off the water, but from where? As for the fixture itself: no visible nuts, screws, or hex wrench slots anywhere. How does this thing come apart?

It’s so much easier to say yes to doing a thing you know you can do, like writing. Writing is like breathing—automatic, life-giving—compared to fixing a leaky faucet.

Another Sunday chore emerges in addition to dinner prep and the faucet. I need a haircut. While I wait for a barber to free up, I open Youtube and solve a few mysteries. Shut off the water by turning a valve under the sink. If the drip continues when you shut off the cold valve, try the hot. Very likely I’ll need a new part, whether a cartridge, a washer, or an o-ring, so a visit to the hardware store is added to the chores. The barber is ready, my hair gets a trim, and I have a strategy for fixing the sink.

Here’s a discovery: the hot water is dripping. Here’s another: those nifty caps with red and blue rings atop our Moen faucet handles actually lift up, and inside is a screw. Neat! These screws hold the handle to the cartridge deep inside. I take these baby steps, then confront my first real dilemma.

We’re dealing with water here, and words like corrosion and lime and age. Having not done this before, I’m hesitant to pull to hard or twist too firmly or apply too much pressure to anything. I don’t want to break something. We just had a new shower installed in this bathroom and wouldn’t it destroy me now to have to redo the vanity? Yes. Has anyone been to a tile store lately? Again yes. Not fun. There are some things in life that call for less choice, not more.

The thing I’m trying not to break while trying to remove it is a top nut holding the cartridge in place. I’ll eventually discover that this nut is essentially redundant, since the cartridge is so firmly fitted in its slot I’ll have to tap it with a hammer to get the new one in. But that’s getting ahead of myself. It’s also getting ahead of the guy on the Youtube video who, when he tries pulling out his cartridge leaves something behind deep in a narrow hole. Time to stop watching that video and fly by intuition, good luck with those needle nose plyers.

I apply incrementally greater pressure to the vice grips. The top nut flexes somewhat but doesn’t turn. Here’s another mystery: turn in which direction? I’m already left-right defective. Add circular motion to the mix—if 12:00 goes left, 6:00 goes right, and which way is up?—and I’m completely lost. Left is loose and right will fuse this top nut to the fixture and it’s tile store hell for me.

I get it correct. Gently, and without leaving anything behind like the Youtube guy, I remove the nut and cartridge, drop them in a Ziploc, and grab my wallet. Time for the best part of a Sunday chore: the local hardware store.

I admire my haircut in the rearview before deciding on my route to the store just half a mile away. Ordinarily I’d bike to the store, but I already got my morning run and I also need a baguette to go with dinner (have you seen those videos mocking e-bike riders? I have, and the joke’s on whoever is posting them, since I love my e-bike and really don’t care that others prefer a grinding ride, especially in summer).

Even the high and packed shelves at the hardware store appear orderly and sensible on this afternoon. The gaggle of clerks isn’t at the door waiting to guide me, but intuition takes me straight to the plumbing section with its full-packed clutter of parts in all sizes, shapes, and brands. Here at the bottom toward the front of aisle three I find my cartridge, compare it against the old one, a perfect match. The nut proves harder to find so I hunt for a clerk to help. He fishes around and tells me they don’t have that size, but the threads on the old one look fine. A little vinegar will remove the lime and corrosion.

After picking up a baguette, I return home, cover the nut and stem with a vinegar-soaked rag, then fix lunch. Everything flows easily from there. I wipe away the lime, tap the new cartridge home, screw down the top nut with a little WD-40, and reattach the handle.

I open the valve below the sink. I turn the hot water handle and the water flows freely out the tap. With some trepidation, I turn the handle closed. The water stops, not a drop out of place. The faucet is fixed for $12.99 in parts and tax, and the turtles can all swim free.

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