Leaky Kitchen Faucet

A couple of weeks ago, one of my tenants called and complained that the kitchen faucet was leaking from the top. From the top, how unusual I thought, especially this was a brand new faucet I installed on this unit when the tenant first moved in two years ago. So I went to check it out.

It turned out that the tenant placed a water restricting device at the tip of the faucet, probably to help save the water consumption. This device created so much back water pressure that the faucet overhang/head bursted and started to spring/shoot out water stream. And the water was leaking into under the sink as well. As usual, there is bucket underneath trying to catch the water dripping down. This was a disaster. I couldn't believe the faucet lasted only two years. I then removed the restricting device and that fixed the water "spring" temporarily and I left.

I then went shopping for a brand new faucet. This time, I don't want to go cheap and end up with more repair work later. I selected a $100 faucet from American Standard. The nice thing about this faucet is that it comes with all the hoses that I can connect directly to the faucet sunder the sink. So I went there last week, removed the old faucet and installed the whole thing for less than an hour. Wow! I remembered it took me more than 2 hours to install the previous faucet two years ago. This is a breeze and well worth the extra $50 I spent on it. Hopefully, it saves more grief down the road too.

This goes to tell you how important it is understand the total cost of ownership. The initial cost of the faucet is only the 1st part of the equation. The installation time, the longevity and the ease of use all play into the total cost of ownership.