Replacing the Kitchen Faucet Without Removing the Water Heater or Cutting The Wall

[BrucePerens]

The Trailmanor kitchen faucet is installed while the outer wall is not present. Removing the faucet and replacing it can be a big hassle, because it's difficult or impossible to reach the plumbing under the faucet without either removing the water heater or cutting an access door in the outside of the Trailmanor.

I was able to do the entire repair without removing the water heater or cutting an access.

I took photos while doing this repair, but unfortunately it's difficult to get a good photo inside of the cabinet. So, I'm going to describe it in words.

The necessary tools and parts were:

A platic pipe cutter. A PEX ring crimper (cheap on Amazon, twice as much at Home Depot). About 10 feet of half-inch PEX pipe. 20 PEX rings. One "Shark-Bite" PEX butt fitting for putting together two PEX pipes. Brass PEX tee, brass PEX elbows, brass PEX butt fittings, two PEX male supply-hose fittings, one PEX female fitting for the water heater.

The new faucet, from Price Pfister, did not have its inlets in the same location, and did not use the same connectors. The new faucet has a single lever instead of the two knobs in the old one, and a hose and nozzle. So, it was going to be necessary to remove the PEX pipe under the faucet.

I first tore the old faucet apart from above the sink, until I got to the point that I could rotate the old parts from above to remove them while holding the fitting under the sink. This required first pulling the caps off of the knobs, then unscrewing the screws underneath, then unscrewing the ring at the base of the spigot. Then the plastic cover was removed from the top and the plastic parts underneath were pried apart until I could finally remove the entire faucet. There was one plastic nut anchoring the faucet that had to be turned from underneath, using just my fingers, to remove it. Pretty soon I was left with just the valves, which I turned from above while holding the PEX fittings below the faucet.

Now the faucet was gone, but the fittings were not in the right place to connect the new one.

At this point I removed the PEX fittings from the water heater, draining the water in it into a bowl.

The next step was to cut out most of the existing piping in the cabinet, so that I could relocate it and make it easier to work upon, and also to relocate some pipe that obstructed the use of the right side of the cabinet for storage. I was able to use the PEX ring crimper to do all but one of the new fittings. The one I could not reach with the PEX crimper, I did with one Shark-Bite butt connector.

I relocated the hot and cold sink outlets to the upper edge of the open area on the right side of the cabinet, and connected 16-inch flexible metal-braid-covered sink supply hoses at that point. I can now reach in to disconnect those hoses without any problem. I pulled those hoses through the center hole in the sink to the area above the sink, and connected them to the faucet there before installing the faucet in the sink. The sprayer hose had to be fed into the right hand hole in the sink and then out the center hole (beside the two supply hoses) to connect it to the faucet. Threading that hose in and back out so that the faucet installs correctly will be difficult for the geometrically challenged.

Having made all three faucet connections without first installing the faucet in the sink, I now carefully jammed all of the hoses in through the center hole, seating the faucet on the sink. It is just barely possible to squeeze all of the connections through that hole, given the sizes of the hoses and the fact that the connections are vertically offset from each other. Be careful not to cut the hoses on the stainless steel sink edges.

Then it was possible to screw down the faucet with a threaded shaft and plastic nut that come with the faucet.

Everything is water-tight and works excellently. Unfortunately this takes a long time to do, but if you ever have to replace the faucet again, it's going to be a lot easier the second time, using the braid-covered supply hoses instead of PEX directly to the faucet.