Faucet Repair & Installation in San Jose, CA
Before you call anybody about a tap with weak flow, unscrew the aerator on the end of the spout and look at it. If it is packed with white grit, that is your answer and it costs nothing. Our water leaves mineral scale everywhere, and a blocked aerator is the single most common cause of a tap that has slowly lost its pressure. Soak it in vinegar, rinse it, put it back.
A tap that drips steadily is a different fault: the cartridge or the seals inside have worn. On a good-quality faucet that is well worth repairing, because cartridges are inexpensive and a well-made body outlasts several sets of internals. On a builder-grade unit with plastic guts, you will be back inside a year or two, and replacement is the better spend.
We install fixtures you have bought yourself and we are happy to. One request: open the box and check everything is in it before we come out, because the most common reason a tap install turns into two visits is a missing part nobody saw until the carton was opened. If we think a particular unit will give you trouble, we will say so before fitting it rather than after.
When people call us about this
- Steady drip from the spout after the tap is shut off
- Flow has faded, or the spray has gone scattered and uneven
- Water escaping around the base of the handle when running
- Handle stiff, loose, or turning without much effect
- Fitting a new tap, including one you supplied
Questions we get asked
Is it worth repairing an old faucet?+
It comes down to whether parts still exist for it and how it was made. A quality faucet from a brand that still supports it is usually well worth rebuilding, because cartridges and seal kits are cheap, and the body of a good tap will see out several sets of internals. Where it stops making sense is when the finish has gone, when the parts have been discontinued, or when it is an inexpensive builder-grade unit whose working parts are plastic and will simply fail again. There is also a middle case: if the problem is weak flow rather than a drip, that is often just a scaled aerator and costs nothing to fix.
Can you install a faucet I bought online?+
Yes, and plenty of people do. The one thing we ask is that you open the box and check the contents before the appointment. Missing mounting hardware, a supply line that is not included, or a finish that arrived damaged are all invisible until somebody opens the carton, and each one turns a single visit into two. It is also worth knowing that inexpensive fixtures often use plastic internals that fail within a few years, so the money saved on the tap tends to come back as a service call later. We will not refuse to fit something we did not supply, but we will give you an honest opinion of it.
Why is only one tap in the house weak?+
Because the fault is local to that fixture rather than in the system. One weak tap with everything else in the house behaving normally is nearly always one of three things: a scaled-up aerator on the spout, a worn cartridge inside the valve, or an angle stop under the sink that somebody left partly closed years ago and nobody has touched since. Check the aerator first, since it is free. If every fixture in the house is weak instead, that is a system-level problem: a failing regulator, a partly closed main, galvanized pipe closing up, or a leak.
Further reading: Hard Water in San Jose: What It Does to Your Pipes and Fixtures.
Describe it to us and we will tell you what it is.
Phone consultations do not cost anything. If it turns out to be something you can sort out yourself, we will say so.
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Faucet Repair & Installation across the South Bay
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