There's a particular kind of frustration that comes from listening to a faucet drip all night, especially when you know you're also paying for every drop. In my experience, most leaky faucets come down to one worn-out little part, and replacing it is far simpler than it sounds. This guide walks you through the fix for every common tap type.
Why Faucets Leak in the First Place
A dripping faucet is one of those small household annoyances that is easy to ignore and expensive to keep ignoring. A faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water in a year. The good news is that most faucet leaks come from a small number of worn parts, and replacing those parts is a repair most homeowners can handle with basic tools and an unhurried hour.
Every faucet is, at heart, a valve: it opens to let water through and closes to stop it. A leak means the valve no longer closes completely. The usual culprits are washers that have hardened or cracked, cartridges with worn seals, O-rings that no longer sit tight, and valve seats with corrosion or mineral buildup. The fix depends on the faucet type, but the logic is the same: find where the water escapes, identify the type, and replace the worn part rather than the whole fixture.
Before reaching for a wrench, it helps to know what kind of faucet is in front of you. There are four common types in most homes — compression, ball, cartridge, and ceramic disc — and each one fails differently. A repair that works perfectly on one type can damage another, so identification comes first. The rest of this guide walks through each type in turn, plus the preparation steps that apply to all of them.
Before You Start: Tools, Parts, and Shutting Off the Water
Gather everything first so the faucet is not left disassembled while you hunt for a part. The basic kit is short: an adjustable wrench, a set of Allen keys, flathead and Phillips screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, plumber's grease, a small towel or rag, and a bucket or bowl to catch residual water. A set of assorted faucet washers and O-rings costs very little and saves a mid-repair trip. If the faucet is a cartridge or ceramic-disc model, buying the replacement cartridge before you start is worth it — take a photo of the faucet and its brand marking to the store, or look up the model number online.
The single most important step is shutting off the water. Look under the sink for two shut-off valves, one for hot and one for cold, and turn both clockwise until they stop. If there are no under-sink valves, or if they are stuck, shut off the home's main supply instead. Then open the faucet to release the pressure and drain the water left in the lines. Keep the drain plugged or covered with a towel while you work: screws and small parts have a reliable habit of falling down open drains.
Lay the parts out in the order you remove them, and photograph each stage. Faucets contain many small pieces, and the order they go back in matters — a photo taken from directly above removes the guesswork from reassembly.
Identifying Your Faucet Type
The fastest way to identify a faucet is by its handles. Two separate handles, one for hot and one for cold, that must be turned several times to go from fully off to fully on usually indicate a compression faucet — the oldest and simplest design. Two handles that turn only a quarter-turn from off to on usually indicate a ceramic-disc faucet. A single handle that pivots over a rounded cap is typically a ball faucet, common in older kitchens. A single handle that moves up and down for flow and side to side for temperature is usually a cartridge faucet, the most common type in homes built or renovated in recent decades.
If the handles do not settle it, check for a logo on the faucet body, base, or handle caps, and search the manufacturer's site for the model. Many manufacturers publish exploded diagrams and part numbers, which make ordering the right cartridge or washer set straightforward. When in doubt, remove the handle and compare the exposed mechanism to reference images for the four types.
Fixing a Compression Faucet
Compression faucets work by pressing a rubber washer down against a valve seat to stop the water. They are simple, durable, and the most likely type to develop a drip, because the washer wears a little every time the faucet is closed. The classic symptom is a drip that continues even when the handle is turned as tight as it will go, or a handle that has to be tightened harder over time to stop the drip.
To repair it, shut off the water and drain the line as described above. Remove the handle — there is usually a screw hidden under a decorative cap on top of the handle; pry the cap off gently with a flathead screwdriver. Unscrew the packing nut with an adjustable wrench, then unscrew the stem. At the bottom of the stem you will find the washer, held in place by a small brass screw. Remove the screw, replace the washer with one of the same size and thickness, and reassemble in reverse order.
While the stem is out, inspect the valve seat inside the faucet body. If it feels rough, pitted, or grooved, the new washer will wear out quickly against it — a valve-seat wrench and a replacement seat cost little, and fixing a damaged seat is the difference between a repair that lasts a year and one that lasts a decade. Grease the stem threads and O-rings on reassembly, and do not over-tighten the packing nut: snug is enough.
Fixing a Cartridge Faucet
Cartridge faucets, whether single-handle or two-handle, control water with a cartridge — a self-contained unit that slides or rotates inside the faucet body. Leaks in cartridge faucets usually mean the cartridge's internal seals have worn, or that the cartridge itself has cracked or become clogged with mineral deposits. Typical symptoms are a drip from the spout, a handle that feels loose or stiff, or water that is hard to balance between hot and cold.
Repair starts the same way: water off, lines drained, handle removed. On a single-handle cartridge faucet, there is usually a retaining nut or clip holding the cartridge in place; remove it, note the cartridge's orientation, and pull the cartridge straight out. Pliers can help, but pull straight and steady rather than twisting, since twisting can score the inside of the faucet body. Take the old cartridge to the store to match it exactly — cartridges are model-specific, and a close match is not good enough.
Before inserting the new cartridge, flush the faucet body by briefly turning the water back on with the cartridge out and a bowl over the opening — this clears grit that would chew up the new seals. Grease the new cartridge's O-rings, slide it in with the same orientation as the old one, and reassemble. If the faucet has separate hot and cold cartridges, replace both; the second one is rarely far behind the first.
Fixing a Ball Faucet
Ball faucets were the first washerless design and are still found in many kitchens. A single handle sits over a slotted metal or plastic ball; moving the handle rotates the ball to align its openings with the hot and cold inlets. Leaks in ball faucets usually come from worn inlet seals and springs, a worn ball, or dried-out O-rings around the faucet body. The common symptom is a drip from the spout combined, often, with a leak around the base of the handle.
Repair kits for ball faucets are sold as a set and include new springs, inlet seals, O-rings, and sometimes a new ball. Replacing the whole set at once is the sensible move — if one seal has worn out, the rest are close behind. To disassemble, remove the handle set screw with an Allen key, lift off the handle, and unscrew the cap with adjustable pliers padded with a cloth to protect the finish. Lift out the cam, washer, and ball, and note the position of the slot in the ball.
Use needle-nose pliers to lift out the old inlet seals and springs, and drop in the new ones from the kit. If the ball is scored or pitted, replace it too. Grease the new O-rings, set the ball back in with the slot aligned as it was, and reassemble. Tighten the adjusting ring — the toothed ring inside the cap — until the handle moves firmly but not stiffly. Too loose, and the faucet will drip; too tight, and it will wear faster.
Fixing a Ceramic-Disc Faucet
Ceramic-disc faucets are the newest design and generally the most reliable. Two hard ceramic discs slide against each other to control the flow, and because ceramic is extremely hard, the discs themselves rarely wear out. When a ceramic-disc faucet leaks, the cause is usually a damaged seal, a cracked disc from overtightening or debris, or a loose cylinder. The symptom is typically a steady drip or a stream from the spout that will not fully shut off.
To repair one, shut off the water, remove the handle, and unscrew the decorative cap and the retaining nut to expose the disc cylinder. Lift the cylinder out and inspect the neoprene seals on its underside — these are the usual failure point. If the seals are worn or flattened, replace them. If the ceramic discs are cracked or chipped, replace the entire cylinder; cylinders are model-specific, so bring the old one to the store or order by model number.
Before reassembling, clean and flush the faucet body to remove grit — a single grain of sand between ceramic discs can crack them, which is why flushing matters more here than with any other type. Reassemble, turn the water back on slowly, and test. Ceramic-disc faucets should operate with light effort; if the handle feels gritty, stop and re-flush rather than forcing it.
When the Leak Is Not the Faucet
Sometimes the drip is not coming from the faucet at all. Water pooling around the base of the faucet, or dripping into the cabinet below, often points to a supply-line connection, a worn sink gasket, or a loose mounting nut. Check the connections under the sink first: tighten compression fittings gently — a quarter-turn past hand-tight is usually enough — and look for corrosion or green deposits on brass fittings, which signal a slow leak.
If the faucet body itself is cracked or corroded through, no internal repair will hold. At that point replacement is the honest answer. A cracked body will keep leaking at the same spot no matter how many washers or cartridges go into it, and the cost of repeated repairs quickly exceeds the cost of a new faucet.
Testing, Prevention, and When to Call a Plumber
After any repair, test methodically. Turn the water back on slowly, check every joint for leaks, and run both hot and cold for a minute. Then turn the faucet off and watch the spout for at least two minutes — a slow drip can take a while to show itself. Check under the sink again after a few hours; a fitting that seemed dry at first can weep once the system is under full pressure.
A few habits extend the life of any faucet. Avoid cranking handles shut with force — on washerless faucets especially, force is what cracks discs and deforms seals. Clean aerators every few months; a clogged aerator raises pressure inside the faucet and accelerates wear. In hard-water areas, wipe mineral deposits from the spout before they build up.
Call a plumber when the shut-off valves themselves leak or will not close, when pipes are corroded or visibly damaged, or when a repair has been attempted twice and the leak persists. A persistent leak after two careful repairs usually means the faucet body or supply piping has a problem parts alone will not fix. Most single-faucet leaks, though, are a one-hour job with a few dollars in parts — and a quieter night without the drip.
