Kitchen faucet not working

[K Kumar]

Hi all.

I am having an unusual situation.

A week ago, my inside & outside showers sprung a leak due to below zero temperatures. At that time I also noticed that I didn't get any water from the kitchen faucet (hot & cold).

I have now stopped the leaks by replacing the faucets in the inside & outside showers. Working on trying to get the water flowing through the kitchen faucet. I have opened all the drain valves under the RV and tried blowing air through the lines with a compressor. Didn't solve the problem. Opened all the faucets and tried blowing compressed air with no luck. The only thing I notice when the I open the kitchen sink faucets - a dribble of water comes through the hand held hose head.

My water pump works. I have both hot and cold water coming through in the bathroom sink & tub, as well as external shower. Only problem is the kitchen sink. I think there is a pocket of air in the pipes for both hot & cold water under the kitchen sink that somehow is on a bypass line that is not being impacted by the compress air that I am blowing. Am I right in my thinking?

Has anyone faced a similar problem. Any advice on how to get this resolved?

Thanks.

[Shane826]

Sounds like a frozen pipe or frozen faucet to me...

[Bill]

As tentcamper noted in your other thread, the problem is likely a collection of grit in the faucet aerator. Just unscrew it, clean it, and replace it (or don't replace it ...). About the easiest fix in the entire TM.

Bill

[K Kumar]

Bill,

Thanks for the suggestion.

Checked out the aerator. That is not the problem. Any other ideas?

[LoveToCamp]

Krishna, can you post a picture of your faucet? You said you have a hand-held sprayer, which is different than mine. Maybe a pic will help others know if it is the same kind they have.

Since we are now into the troubleshooting mode, I would see if water comes through the water line before it attaches to the kitchen faucet. Tricky, but I think you should do this:

If connected to "city water":
Turn off the spigot feeding the hose to your trailer.
Open the shower faucets to relieve pressure in the lines. Turn off shower faucets.
Squeeze kitchen sprayer to relieve any pressure there, if any.
Remove cold water connection from kitchen faucet. Cover with baggie, and tape shut, so no water can leak out.
Have someone you trust turn on and off the city supply, quickly. See if any water comes out of water line.

If using pump and onboard water:
Relieve pressure in lines, as above.
Remove water line from faucet. Cover with baggie, and tape closed.
Turn on water pump for half a second, and see if water comes out of the water line.

If water comes out of the line, it is the faucet that is not allowing water to flow. Look for an obstruction in any of the faucet openings, but definitely in the "cold" source. But, since there is no water coming through the faucet now, there seems to be an obstruction in the faucet that keeps both hot and cold from flowing, so it would be post-mix within the faucet.

Good luck, and be careful not to flood your TM!

[Shane826]

Does the sprayer work? If so, the diverted valve that switches flow between the faucet and the sprayer is stuck. I actually had this happen to the kitchen sink in my house. Had to replace the entire faucet.

[K Kumar]

Hi,

I have attached photo of sink.

If I remove the sprayer head, I notice a small stream of water coming through the sprayer pipe when the cold water faucet is opened, not with the full force you would expect.

Shane, suspect from what you are saying I could have a diverter issue. Do I have to replace the faucet or is there a work around. I don't use the sprayer. Prefer not to replace the faucet if possible, since it would involve taking down the water heater.

Thanks.

[Shane826]

I know when the diverter failed in my home sink I had to replace the faucet. Probably the same deal with a camper faucet...

[Gapopper]

So what was it ?

[K Kumar]

Hi all.

Just wanted to give an update.

Finally, last week I replaced the kitchen faucet. It was one of the most difficult things I have done on my own. The main issue was lack of working space under the sink, lack of strength/power in my fingers and short arm length. I hope I never have to do this again and would not advice others to do this.

I first removed the doors under the sink, then the drain pipes to work under the sink. This was the easy part. This gave me some room to reach inside and lay my fingers on the nuts that need to be loosened. At first I didn't buy the right tools, and thought I could work with the tools that I had in my tool kit - wrench, pliers, etc.,. The nuts attached to the pipes & the wing nuts holding the faucet in place were tight. I could not get leverage. So, I made the mistake of thinking I would take out the water pump, as well as the water tank when the pump idea didn't pan out. Thank goodness I didn't completely take them out!

Decided I had to invest in tools, so got some good ones from Home Depot and went back to work. This time I was able to unscrew the cold water pipe and wing nut on the faucet. But I still could not get sufficient leverage on the hot water tube nut because it was further inside and the hot water heater was making it inaccessible.

Called TM and talked to Jeff. He suggested I try using a "crow foot" wrench to get access to the really crammed area around the hot water pipe. Managed to find this wrench at Sears & Auto Zone. With the help of this small wrench (I never knew something like this existed) I was able to unscrew the nut on the hot water pipe, and finally the wing nut holding the faucet on the hot water side. Yipee!

So 50% of the work was done, but now I had to install the new faucet bought from Walmart. Well, this proved to be challenging! TM has these plastic pipes which are press fitted at the joints and they are not perfectly measured and cut at the original install. So, they are slightly off in terms of where they need to be screwed in easily. I had to spend extra time to get the nut to align correctly with the faucet pipe blindly because you cannot see it and try tightening it with the special wrench. That was tricky!! I was sweating, praying and cursing TM for not cutting the plastic pipes to the correct dimensions. Finally managed to tighten the 4 nuts (2 hot + 2 cold) after about an hour with breaks in between to catch my breath. Then reconnected the pipes to the water pump which gave me the most issue because of the pipe dimension problem and the nut would not align correctly to thread properly. Finally got that in. Reconnected the hoses to the water tank that I had removed (due to the earlier plan to remove the water tank to increase working space under the sink that I didn't execute on). All the while I was hoping there wouldn't be any leaks from the work I had done. I just didn't think I would have the stamina to redo anything.

Finally, with a lot of trepedition, turned on the water. Thankfully there was no water leaks anywhere. Tested the water pump and it worked fine.

Finally, now I have all faucets working fine. It is nice to have water in the trailer and not take your dishes to the rest room in the freezing weather to wash them.

Finally, went back to HD & Sears and returned all the tools and got my money back.