How to Fix a Leaky Faucet

Updated August 2026 · Home Project Resources

Figure out what kind of faucet you have before you buy a single part. There are four types, the internal repair is completely different for each one, and walking into the hardware store with "it's a bathroom faucet" is how people end up making three trips in one Saturday. Take the faucet apart first, carry the worn part with you, and buy to match.

Once you know the type, the actual repair is usually 20 to 45 minutes, and the parts are cheap enough that a washer kit and a cartridge sit in the same aisle. A dripping faucet wastes roughly 3,000 gallons a year at one drip per second, which is about 180 showers, so this is one of the highest-value hours you'll spend on your house.

Budgeting a bigger bathroom project? Our bathroom remodel cost guide breaks out fixtures, labor, and where the money actually goes, so you can decide whether this faucet is worth repairing or whether it's about to be replaced anyway.

Updated August 2026

A note on numbers. This page covers faucet types, parts, sequence and the questions that make quotes comparable, not dollar figures. Parts availability, plumber call-out minimums and trade rates all move by region and by season, and we do not set any of them. Take the checklists below to two or three licensed plumbers instead.

Step 1: shut off the water before you touch anything

This is a step, not a warning box. Do it first, every time.

1. Close the supply stops under the sink. Two small valves, one hot and one cold, usually oval-handled or quarter-turn levers. Turn clockwise until they stop. If they're quarter-turn, the handle ends up perpendicular to the pipe.
2. If the stops are frozen, seized, or they weep when you turn them, stop and shut off the main. Old multi-turn stops fail more often than people expect. Forcing one can snap the stem and turn a 30-minute repair into a flooded vanity. The main shutoff is usually where the water line enters the house, near the meter, or by the water heater.
3. Open the faucet all the way, both handles, and let it run dry. This relieves pressure in the line and tells you the stops actually closed. If water keeps trickling after a minute, the stops aren't sealing and you need to go to the main.
4. Plug the drain. Push in the stopper or lay a rag over the opening.

Plug the drain before you loosen anything. That one line saves more grief than anything else on this page. Faucet repairs involve tiny screws, retaining clips, springs, and cam washers, and a dropped retaining clip goes down a bathroom drain in under a second. A retaining clip that is no longer manufactured can turn a trivial repair into a whole faucet replacement.

Two more setup habits worth having:

• Lay a towel in the sink basin. It cushions dropped tools and keeps you from chipping the porcelain.
• Take a photo at every stage of disassembly. Reassembly order matters on ball and cartridge faucets, and your phone remembers better than you do.

The four faucet types and how to tell them apart

Every residential faucet made in the last 70 years falls into one of four families. You can usually identify yours in under a minute without tools.

The quick identification test

• Two handles? It's compression or a two-handle cartridge. Turn one handle. If it takes multiple full rotations, tightens as it closes, and stops with a firm feel, that's compression. If it stops in about a quarter to a half turn and feels smooth the whole way, that's a cartridge.
• One handle on a tall rounded cap with a set screw hidden under a small cover? Almost certainly ball. Pull the handle and look for a slotted ball on top of a plastic cam.
• One handle on a wide, squat cylinder, very short throw, feels like a lever on a machine? Ceramic disc.
• One handle that lifts and rotates smoothly with a longer throw and no visible ball? Cartridge.

If you're still unsure, find the brand on the spout, escutcheon, or the underside of the sink, then look up the model. Moen, Delta, Kohler, Price Pfister, and American Standard all publish parts diagrams, and most will send common replacement parts free under their lifetime warranty if you're the original owner. That's worth a phone call before you spend anything.

How to fix a leaky faucet by type

Here is the repair map. Find your type, find your symptom, and you know what to buy.

Compression faucets

Pop the decorative cap off the handle, back out the handle screw, and pull the handle. Unscrew the packing nut, then back the stem out counterclockwise with a wrench on the stem flats. At the bottom of the stem is a flat or beveled rubber washer held by a brass screw.

Replace the washer with an exact-size match. Also swap the small O-ring on the stem body and any packing washer under the packing nut while it's apart. The whole kit is the cheapest repair part in the store.

If the drip comes back quickly, the brass seat the washer presses against is pitted. Pull it with a seat wrench (a squared L-shaped tool, cheap and sold alongside the washers) and replace it, or smooth it with a seat dressing tool. Replacing beats grinding when the seat is removable.

Ball faucets

Buy the brand's repair kit rather than individual parts. It comes with two rubber seats, two conical springs, a cam, a cam washer, spout O-rings, and usually the small hex wrench you need.

Remove the handle set screw, lift the handle, unscrew the cap with a smooth-jawed wrench or channel locks over a rag, and lift out the cam, cam washer, and ball together. Underneath, in each inlet, sits a small rubber seat on a spring. Pick both out with needle-nose pliers or a bent paperclip.

Spring goes in first, narrow end down into the hole, then the rubber seat over it. Inspect the ball for scoring while you're in there. Reassemble in reverse, then tighten the adjusting ring just enough that the handle moves smoothly with no leak at the cap.

Cartridge faucets

The most common repair in modern houses, and usually the easiest. Remove the handle, pull the retaining clip (a U-shaped or horseshoe clip that slides out sideways), and pull the cartridge straight up with pliers.

Two things go wrong here. First, the cartridge can be stuck with mineral scale, which is what cartridge pullers exist for. Second, some cartridges are keyed and must go back in the same rotational orientation, or your hot and cold end up reversed. Note the orientation before you pull it.

Match the replacement by brand and model number, not by eye. Moen 1225, Moen 1222, and Moen 1224 look similar and are not interchangeable.

Ceramic disc faucets

Remove the handle and the escutcheon cap, unscrew the mounting screws, and lift out the cylinder. Flip it over and you'll see two or three rubber inlet seals sitting in ports.

Half the time, cleaning is the fix. Pop the seals out, rinse the sediment, soak the cylinder in white vinegar for 20 minutes if it's scaled, scrub the ports with a soft brush, and reassemble. If the drip returns, the ceramic discs themselves are chipped or worn and you replace the whole cylinder.

Ceramic disc faucets are sensitive to grit. If your repair follows a water main break or new plumbing work, remove the aerator and flush the lines with the cylinder out before you put it all back together.

Dripping spout vs leaking base vs leaking underneath

These are three different problems with three different fixes, and people confuse them constantly. Diagnose by watching where the water actually comes from.

Dripping from the spout when the faucet is off. The valve isn't sealing. That's the washer, seats and springs, cartridge, or disc cylinder, depending on type. Everything in the table above applies.

Water pooling around the base of the spout, only while the water runs. The valve is fine. The O-rings that seal the swiveling spout to the faucet body are worn. Pull the spout sleeve straight up and off, cut the old O-rings away, roll new ones on, and coat them with plumber's grease. The kits are pocket change.

Water under the sink. This one is not a faucet repair at all most of the time. Dry everything, put a paper towel under each candidate, run the water, and check after two minutes:

• Supply line nut wet: tighten a quarter turn, or replace the braided supply line, which is an inexpensive part. Braided stainless lines have a service life and old ones fail suddenly.
• Supply stop weeping at the stem: snug the packing nut slightly, or replace the stop, which usually means shutting off the main.
• Faucet shank nut wet: the faucet's mounting seal or the shank connection has failed, and reseating the faucet on fresh plumber's putty or a new gasket fixes it.
• Water only when the sink drains, not when it runs: that's the drain, tailpiece, or P-trap, not the faucet. Different repair entirely.
• Sprayer hose wet at the connection: replace the hose or the quick connect.

Finding the real source first is the difference between a one-part fix and replacing a faucet that was never broken.

When to replace instead of repair

If a faucet replacement is the start of a wider bathroom refresh rather than the end of it, size the room before you price anything. Our square footage calculator handles the floor and wall areas that drive tile, paint, and flooring quotes, and bathroom remodel cost covers what those quotes usually come to.

There's no clean rule here, so here's an honest judgment call.

Repair when: the faucet body is solid, the finish is intact, parts are still made, and this is the first or second repair. One cartridge on a good faucet is the best money in plumbing.

Replace when any of these are true:

• The body is corroded. Green crust, pitting, or white crumbly buildup on the brass means the casting is degrading. New seals won't seal against a rough surface.
• Parts are obsolete. If the brand is gone, the model is delisted, and the only cartridges are used auction listings at several times the original part price, you're maintaining an antique.
• You've already repaired it twice. The third repair is telling you something.
• The faucet is past roughly 15 to 20 years. This is a judgment call, not a hard number. A quality solid-brass faucet can run 30 years with new cartridges. A builder-grade zinc-body faucet often isn't worth a second cartridge at year 12. Look at what it's made of, not just its age.
• It's a two-handle faucet you're tired of, and you already have the sink apart. Being in there is worth real money in labor.

How the five paths compare:

Labor runs higher in high cost-of-living metros (coastal California, Seattle, Boston, New York) and lower in rural markets. Most plumbers also carry a minimum service charge that applies no matter how quick the fix is, so a repair visit rarely comes in cheap. Ask for that minimum on the phone before you book, and ask whether the diagnostic fee rolls into the repair. A written local quote is the authority, not a national range.

What makes a quote go up

• Seized or leaking supply stops that have to be replaced along with the faucet.
• Corroded mounting nuts under a cramped deck, which sometimes means cutting them off.
• A wall-mounted or roman tub faucet instead of a standard deck-mount sink.
• Emergency or after-hours calls, typically 1.5x to 2x the standard rate.
• No accessible shutoff, meaning the main gets closed and the whole house is offline during the work.
• Discovering the leak was actually the drain or the supply piping, which is a separate repair.

Parts and tools you'll actually need

Tools:

• Adjustable wrench and channel-lock pliers, with a rag to protect finishes
• Phillips and flat screwdrivers, plus a set of hex (Allen) keys for handle set screws
• Needle-nose pliers, for springs and seats
• Utility knife or a dental pick, for cutting old O-rings off without scoring the groove
• Basin wrench, only if you're removing the whole faucet
• Brand-specific cartridge puller, only if the cartridge is stuck
• Small flashlight and a phone camera

Consumables:

• The repair kit or cartridge that matches your faucet
• Silicone plumber's grease
• White vinegar for descaling
• Plumber's putty or a fresh gasket if you pull the faucet off the deck
• PTFE thread seal tape for threaded supply connections

Why plumber's grease has to be silicone-based

This detail matters more than it sounds like it should. Faucet O-rings and seals are nitrile or EPDM rubber. Petroleum-based lubricants (petroleum jelly, general-purpose white lithium grease, most household oils) cause those compounds to swell, soften, and eventually crumble. The O-ring you greased with petroleum jelly may seal beautifully for six months and then fail as a smear of black goo.

Silicone plumber's grease is chemically inert to those rubbers, tolerates hot water, doesn't wash out, and comes NSF 61 rated for potable water contact. A tub costs very little and lasts years.

Grease every O-ring before installing it, and grease the cartridge body and the inside of the spout sleeve so the spout swivels smoothly instead of dragging and tearing the ring you just installed.

Worked example: a dripping single-handle cartridge faucet

A Moen single-handle bathroom faucet, roughly 11 years old, dripping from the spout maybe once every two seconds. The finish is fine and the body is solid brass. Clear repair candidate.

Diagnosis. Handle has a smooth quarter-turn feel with no hard stop, and there's no dome cap or slotted ball under the handle. Cartridge faucet. Model number found on the original box in the vanity, and confirmed against the brand's parts diagram online: a 1225 cartridge.

Parts, and what each one cost relative to the others:

The sequence, with real timings:

1. Closed both supply stops, opened the faucet, ran it dry. 2 minutes.
2. Plugged the drain, laid a towel in the basin. 1 minute.
3. Pried the handle cap, backed out the hex set screw, pulled the handle. 3 minutes.
4. Removed the handle collar and the retaining clip with needle-nose pliers, dropped the clip onto the towel, not down the drain. 4 minutes.
5. Photographed the cartridge stem orientation before touching it. 1 minute.
6. Twisted the cartridge with pliers to break the scale, then pulled it straight up. It resisted, so the puller went on and it came free. 12 minutes.
7. Wiped the cartridge bore clean, greased the new cartridge O-rings, pushed it in to the same orientation as the photo, reinstalled the clip. 6 minutes.
8. Replaced the spout O-rings while everything was open, greased them. 5 minutes.
9. Reassembled the handle. 4 minutes.
10. Opened the stops slowly, ran hot and cold for a minute to flush debris, checked for drips at the spout, base, and under the sink. 5 minutes.

Total: 43 minutes and one bag of parts. A plumber visit for the same job in an average metro would have run several times the parts bill, most of it labor and the call-out minimum. Eleven years of drip savings on the water bill is a bonus on top.

One thing that went right by accident: the photo in step 5. The cartridge went back rotated 180 degrees on the first attempt, and hot came out of the cold side. The photo made it a 90-second correction instead of a confusing 20 minutes.

Safety and old-house notes

• Never work on a supply line without confirming the water is actually off. Open the faucet after closing the stops and watch for flow. A stop that looks closed but isn't will soak a vanity in about a minute.
• A faucet is not electrical work, but if you're pulling a garbage disposal or an under-sink water heater out of the way to reach anything, cut power at the breaker and confirm it's dead with a non-contact voltage tester before you touch a wire. Don't trust a wall switch to prove a circuit is off.
• Gas water heaters, gas lines, and any repiping past the fixture stop belong to a licensed plumber, and most jurisdictions require permits for work beyond fixture replacement. Fixture-level repair like this is normally permit-free, but check locally.
• Pre-1978 homes: assume painted surfaces contain lead until tested. If you're pulling a vanity or cutting into painted cabinetry, do not sand or scrape it. Get a lead test kit or a certified inspection.
• Pre-1990 homes: sheet vinyl, floor tile, and pipe wrap can contain asbestos. The insulation wrapped around old supply lines under a sink is a classic location. Don't cut, sand, or tear it. Have it tested and let an abatement contractor handle removal.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my faucet still drip after I replaced the washer?

Almost always a damaged valve seat. The brass seat the washer presses against gets pitted by years of mineral-laden water, and a perfect new washer can't seal against a rough surface. Pull the seat with a seat wrench and replace it, or dress it flat with a seat grinding tool. If the seat isn't removable, you replace the faucet.

How do I know if my faucet is a cartridge or a ball type?

Pull the handle off and look. A ball faucet has a rounded dome cap, and under it sits a slotted metal or plastic ball on a plastic cam. A cartridge faucet has a cylinder held in place by a horseshoe-shaped retaining clip that slides out sideways. Ball faucets are almost always single-handle; cartridges come in both single and two-handle versions.

Can I fix a leaky faucet without turning off the water?

No. Even a small residential system runs 40 to 80 psi, and the moment the valve stem or cartridge clears the body you have an open pipe pointed at the ceiling. Closing the two stops under the sink takes 30 seconds. If the stops don't hold, close the main.

What is the most common cause of a dripping faucet?

Worn internal valve seals: a rubber washer on a compression faucet, the springs and rubber seats on a ball faucet, or the cartridge on a modern single-handle faucet. Hard water accelerates all of it by scoring the sealing surfaces with mineral deposits. Aerator clogs cause weak flow but never a drip.

Why is my faucet leaking at the base of the spout?

Worn spout O-rings, not the valve. Water shows up around the base only while the faucet runs, which is the giveaway. Lift the spout sleeve off, cut the old rings away carefully so you don't scratch the groove, roll new ones on, and coat them with silicone plumber's grease before sliding the spout back down.

Do I need special tools to replace a faucet cartridge?

Usually just pliers, a screwdriver, and a hex key. The exception is a cartridge cemented in place by mineral scale, which needs a brand-specific cartridge puller. Many plumbing supply counters lend them for a refundable deposit, so you may not have to buy one at all. Twisting the cartridge in place first to break the scale often makes the puller unnecessary.

Is it cheaper to repair or replace a leaky faucet?

Repair is cheaper on parts every time, since a kit or a cartridge is a small fraction of a decent new faucet. Replacement wins when the body is corroded, parts are discontinued, or you've already repaired it twice. Since a plumber's labor is roughly the same either way, replacing during a paid service call is often the better value.

Can hard water damage a faucet permanently?

Yes. Mineral scale scores ceramic discs, pits brass seats, and cements cartridges into place, and none of that reverses. Soaking parts in white vinegar removes deposits but can't restore a scored surface. If you're on hard water, cleaning the aerator and inlet seals once a year meaningfully extends faucet life.

Related: Planning the whole room instead of one fixture? The bathroom remodel cost guide covers full budgets, and shower installation cost breaks out that piece separately. If the toilet is next on the list, how to install a toilet walks through the rough-in and flange details that cause most repeat leaks.