How to Change a Kitchen Faucet Without Losing Your Mind (Or Flooding Your Kitchen)

I've changed exactly seventeen kitchen faucets in my lifetime. Not because I'm a plumber – I'm not – but because I have this unfortunate habit of buying old houses and thinking, "How hard could it be?" The first one took me six hours and three trips to the hardware store. The last one? Forty-five minutes, including cleanup.

The difference wasn't just experience. It was understanding that changing a faucet isn't really about the faucet at all. It's about what's happening underneath your sink, in that dark cabinet where forgotten cleaning supplies go to die and where the laws of physics seem to work differently than they do in the rest of your house.

The Truth Nobody Tells You About Kitchen Faucets

Your kitchen faucet is probably the hardest-working fixture in your home. Think about it – you use it dozens of times a day, yanking the handle this way and that, expecting it to deliver everything from a gentle stream for filling your coffee pot to a powerful spray for blasting dried oatmeal off your kid's breakfast bowl. Most faucets last about fifteen to twenty years before they start acting up, though I've seen some soldiers from the 1970s still chugging along, dripping steadily like a metronome.

When people ask me whether they should replace their faucet, I tell them to look for three things: persistent dripping that won't stop no matter how hard you crank the handle, mineral buildup that makes the water spray in seventeen different directions like a broken sprinkler, or that telltale wobble at the base that means the mounting hardware has given up the ghost.

But here's what really matters – and what most DIY articles won't tell you. The hardest part of changing a faucet isn't installing the new one. It's removing the old one. Those nuts and connections have been sitting there for years, possibly decades, slowly fusing themselves together through a combination of mineral deposits, corrosion, and what I can only describe as pure spite.

What You Actually Need (Not What the Instructions Say)

Every faucet comes with installation instructions that show a smiling person effortlessly sliding a wrench into place with plenty of room to maneuver. This is a lie. Your under-sink space will be cramped, dark, and probably inhabited by at least one spider who's been there since the Clinton administration.

You'll need a basin wrench – that weird tool that looks like a medieval torture device with a long handle and a jaw that pivots. Don't try to do this job without one. I spent two hours trying to remove mounting nuts with regular wrenches and channel locks before I finally drove to the hardware store and bought a basin wrench for twelve dollars. It took thirty seconds after that.

Get yourself a good headlamp too. Not a flashlight – you need both hands free. I learned this after dropping my flashlight into the garbage disposal while lying on my back under the sink. The headlamp makes you look ridiculous, but nobody's taking photos of you under there anyway.

You'll also want a bucket or a large pot. Not for the water in the supply lines – there's surprisingly little in there. You need it for all the mysterious drips that will somehow find their way out of connections you haven't even touched yet. Water under sinks operates according to its own rules.

The Removal: Where Things Get Real

Before you touch anything, turn off the water supply valves under the sink. Turn them clockwise until they stop. Then turn on the faucet to release any pressure and confirm the water is actually off. I once trusted that the valves were working without testing, and let's just say my kitchen ceiling in the apartment below mine has never quite looked the same.

Now comes the moment of truth. You're lying on your back, looking up at the underside of your sink, and you realize that whoever installed this faucet apparently did so before they put the sink in place. Or maybe they had the arms of a small child. Or perhaps they were just sadists.

The supply lines usually come off fairly easily – they're meant to be replaced periodically. But those mounting nuts? They're a different story. This is where that basin wrench earns its keep. The jaw grips the nut from the side, and the long handle gives you leverage to break it free. When it finally moves – and it will, eventually – you'll feel like you've just solved a particularly satisfying puzzle.

Sometimes you'll encounter plastic mounting nuts, especially on cheaper faucets. These can be even worse than metal ones because they become brittle over time. I once had one crumble in my hands like an ancient artifact. If this happens, you'll need to carefully chip away the pieces with a screwdriver. It's tedious, but it beats calling a plumber.

Installing the New Faucet: The Part That's Actually Easy

Here's something that might surprise you: installing the new faucet is genuinely straightforward. Modern faucets are designed to be DIY-friendly, with clear instructions and hardware that actually makes sense. The mounting system usually involves a plate or brackets that you secure from below, and everything is labeled and logical.

The trick is to not overthink it. Position the faucet where you want it, making sure it's centered and straight. Have someone up top hold it in place while you work underneath – this is definitely a two-person job unless you enjoy the special frustration of watching your perfectly aligned faucet shift just as you're tightening the last nut.

When connecting the supply lines, remember this: hand-tight plus a quarter turn with a wrench. That's it. Over-tightening is probably the number one mistake I see people make. Those rubber washers inside the connections need to compress just enough to seal, not enough to squish out the sides like Play-Doh.

The First Test: A Moment of Truth

After everything's connected, you're going to turn those supply valves back on, and you're going to watch like a hawk for leaks. Open them slowly – water hammer is real, and it's startling when you're lying under a sink. Check every connection with a dry paper towel. Even the tiniest leak will eventually cause problems, so take your time here.

When you turn on the faucet for the first time, it might sputter and spit. That's normal – there's air in the lines. Let it run for a minute or two. Remove the aerator (that little screen at the tip of the faucet) and let any debris flush out. You'd be amazed at what comes out sometimes – bits of Teflon tape, metal shavings, mysterious black specks that could be anything from rubber gasket pieces to the remnants of a civilization that once lived in your pipes.

The Stuff That Goes Wrong (And How to Fix It)

I'd be lying if I said every faucet installation goes smoothly. Sometimes the new faucet's connections don't quite line up with your supply lines. This is why I always buy supply lines that are slightly longer than I think I need. A 20-inch line that has to loop a bit is infinitely better than a 16-inch line that's stretched taut.

If your new faucet has a sprayer and the old one didn't, you might need to knock out the plug in the extra hole in your sink. This should be easy – it's designed to pop out – but sometimes it's been painted over or sealed with plumber's putty. A hammer and screwdriver usually do the trick, but go easy. I once hit too hard and chipped the porcelain. That was an expensive mistake.

The worst-case scenario is discovering that your shut-off valves don't actually shut off the water completely. This happens more often than you'd think, especially in older homes. If you see a steady drip even with the valves closed, you have two choices: replace the valves (which means shutting off water to the whole house) or work fast. I've done it both ways. Working fast is stressful but doable if the drip is slow enough.

Why This Actually Matters

You might wonder why I'm going into such detail about what seems like a simple home repair. Here's the thing: your kitchen faucet is one of the few things in your house that you interact with constantly. A good faucet that works properly and looks nice genuinely improves your daily life in small but meaningful ways. That smooth handle action, that perfect water pressure, that satisfying click when you switch from stream to spray – these tiny pleasures add up.

Plus, there's something deeply satisfying about fixing something in your own home with your own hands. In a world where so many things feel out of our control, being able to look at your kitchen faucet and think, "I installed that myself," provides a small but real sense of accomplishment.

I remember the first faucet I successfully installed. It was a basic chrome model, nothing fancy, but when I turned it on and no water leaked anywhere, I felt like I'd just built a rocket. My wife still makes fun of how I called everyone into the kitchen to watch me turn it on and off, demonstrating the sprayer function like I was presenting at a trade show.

The Long Game

A good kitchen faucet, properly installed, should last you fifteen to twenty years. That's thousands upon thousands of uses. When you think about it that way, spending a Saturday afternoon getting it right doesn't seem like such a big deal. Take your time, don't force anything, and remember that every plumber started out not knowing how to do this either.

And if you find yourself at 9 PM on a Sunday, covered in whatever that black gunk is that lives under sinks, with three trips to the hardware store under your belt and a spouse who's questioning your DIY ambitions, remember this: tomorrow morning, when you turn on your new faucet and it works perfectly, all of this will have been worth it.

Just maybe keep that plumber's number handy. You know, just in case.

Authoritative Sources:

"Plumbing: Complete Projects for the Home." Creative Homeowner, 2019.

Cauldwell, Rex. "Inspecting a House: A Guide for Buyers, Owners, and Renovators." The Taunton Press, 2018.

"Residential Plumbing Code Requirements." International Code Council, 2021.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "WaterSense Labeled Faucets." EPA.gov, 2023.

National Kitchen and Bath Association. "Kitchen Planning Guidelines with Access Standards." NKBA Professional Resource Library, 2020.