Fixture repair guide
Faucet Repair & Replacement Denver
Dripping Faucets, Cartridges & Angle Stops
A kitchen faucet drips at a rate you could set a metronome to. The cartridge is usually the culprit, the shutoff underneath is usually the complication, and your water district decides how soon you'll be doing this again. Here's how the whole job actually goes.
- Cartridge, seat, or O-ring
- Angle stops that seize
- Brass body vs. pot metal
- Honest Front Range ranges
Find out what's leaking before you buy anything
A faucet leaks in three places and each one means something different. Water from the end of the spout with the handle off means the cartridge or the seat isn't sealing. Water welling up around the base of the spout while it runs means the body O-rings have gone hard. Water under the cabinet means a supply connection, the shank nut, or the drain, and those three get blamed for each other constantly.
Wipe everything dry, tuck a dry paper towel under each suspect, and run the faucet for two minutes. The towel that turns wet tells you more than an hour of theorizing. Do that before you go buy a fixture you may not need.
Most faucets built since the 1980s use a cartridge: a plastic or brass sleeve with ceramic discs that shear against each other to control flow and mix temperature. Older two-handle fixtures in Wheat Ridge brick ranches and Englewood bungalows use compression stems with rubber washers, which is why they need a firm crank and why the seat underneath gets chewed up. Ball faucets, the single-handle kitchen style with a rotating dome, wear out their springs and rubber seats first.
Half the calls that start with weak flow end at the aerator. Unscrew it. If the screen is packed with white grit, you live on hard water and the fix costs nothing but a vinegar soak. If it's full of small black rubber crumbs, something upstream is shedding, often a failing supply hose or a water heater dip tube.
| Where it leaks | Likely cause | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Spout, handle off | Worn cartridge or scored seat | Cartridge or rebuild kit |
| Base of spout while running | Hardened body O-rings | O-ring kit and silicone grease |
| Under the handle | Failed bonnet washer or loose retainer | Rebuild, occasionally just a retightening |
| Under the cabinet, dry above | Supply hose, shank nut, or angle stop | Replace the connection, not the faucet |
| Sprayer hose inside the cabinet | Cracked pull-down hose or bad quick-connect | Hose assembly swap |
The shutoff under the sink is the real job
Every faucet swap depends on a valve most people have never turned. The angle stop feeds the faucet from the wall or the floor, and in homes built from the 1950s through the 1970s (a huge share of Northglenn, Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, and south Thornton) it's a multi-turn chrome stop with a rubber washer that has sat compressed in one position since disco.
Turn it and one of three things happens. It seals, which is a good day. It spins with no resistance while water keeps running, meaning the internal washer disintegrated years ago. Or the packing nut behind the handle starts to weep, and now you have a live leak in a cabinet you were only visiting.
That's why any honest faucet quote either includes new quarter-turn stops or names what happens if the old ones fail. Quarter-turn ball stops cost a few dollars, last decades, and turn the next repair into a fifteen-minute errand. If the stop threads onto galvanized pipe, the stakes climb: old galvanized nipples can crumble at the threads, and then you're opening a wall. That's the point where a faucet job stops being a faucet job.
Know where your main shutoff is before you start. In most Front Range basements it sits on the wall where the service line enters, usually toward the front of the house and often within a few feet of the meter. Older Englewood and Denver homes sometimes hide it behind finished basement walls, which is worth discovering on a calm Tuesday rather than during a spray.
Rebuild it or replace it, and what each runs
The math is usually simple. A cartridge for a major brand runs from about ten dollars to fifty, and several manufacturers still send them free to the original owner if you call and describe the model. A decent replacement faucet starts around a hundred and climbs past four hundred quickly. If the body is sound and parts exist, rebuilding wins on cost every time.
Labor is where the range widens. Along the Front Range, a straightforward faucet replacement with working shutoffs and a clear cabinet commonly lands in the low-to-mid hundreds plus the fixture. Add seized stops, a disposal that has to come out for access, or a cast iron sink that takes two people to handle, and the number climbs in steps you can see coming if you ask.
Replace instead of repair when the body is cracked, when the finish is flaking off in sheets, when the brand has no parts lineage, or when you're already in there for another reason. Rebuild when the fixture is solid brass and simply tired. And if the same faucet has eaten three cartridges in six years, stop repairing it and look at your water: hard supply in Frederick or Brighton grinds through ceramic discs on a schedule. The rest of our fixture guidance starts from that premise.
Need this handled this week?
Start a quoteBuying one that survives your water
The best predictor of how long a faucet lasts is what its body is made of. Solid brass, sometimes sold as lead-free brass, tolerates torque, heat cycling, and mineral abuse. Zinc alloy castings look identical on the shelf and crack at the shank. Weight is a rough but useful test: in the same price class, heavier usually means more brass.
Ceramic disc cartridges beat everything else for durability and they're standard now. Finish matters less than people think, with one exception. Physical vapor deposition finishes (PVD, usually sold as brushed nickel or matte black) shrug off the scratching and spotting that hard water inflicts, while polished chrome shows every mineral spot in a Commerce City or Firestone kitchen within a day of cleaning.
Details that get ignored on the showroom floor: how many holes your sink has, since a single-hole faucet needs a deck plate to cover a three-hole sink, and whether the pull-down hose uses a proprietary quick-connect only one brand sells. Measure spout height against your upper cabinets and the window sash, too. A tall gooseneck that can't clear a lifted window is a returns-counter story we've heard more than once.
Maintenance here is boring and it works. Soak the aerator in white vinegar twice a year if you're on hard water. Don't overtighten handles. And if the house has never had its supply connections replaced, swap the braided lines while the cabinet is open. The same rubber core that fails behind a washing machine fails under a sink. Our appliance hookup guide covers which hoses are worth the extra few dollars.
Related work
More fixtures services
Toilet Repair & Replacement
running toilets, rocking bowls, flange repair, high-efficiency swaps
→Shower & Tub Valve Repair
temperature swings, cartridge replacement, access panel realities
→Garbage Disposal Installation
sizing, mounting, dishwasher tie-ins, what disposals cannot handle
→Appliance Water Hookups
fridge lines, dishwashers, washing machines, ice makers, braided supply upgrades
→Where we cover
Front Range cities we write for
Questions we actually get
Faucet Repair & Replacement: quick answers
My faucet still drips after a new cartridge. What did I miss?
Usually one of three things. The cartridge may not be fully seated or clocked to the right orientation, so the discs never line up. Debris from the line can hold a seat open, which a quick flush with the cartridge out will clear. Or the seat itself is scored from years of dripping, in which case a rebuild kit with new seats and springs is the fix rather than the cartridge alone.
Can I replace the shutoff valve under the sink myself?
Sometimes. Close the main, open a low faucet to drain pressure, and if the old stop is a compression fitting on copper, a new quarter-turn stop goes on with basic tools. Stop and call a plumber if the stop threads into galvanized pipe, if the pipe stub flexes when you put a wrench on it, or if the connection is at the back of a cabinet where you can't get square on it.
Are expensive faucets actually better, or is it just the finish?
The price gap that matters is brass body versus zinc, ceramic disc versus rubber washer, and whether the brand still stocks parts in ten years. Those three things track loosely with price and strongly with lifespan. Designer finishes and pull-down magnets add cost without adding service life. A mid-priced faucet from a brand your local supply house carries is usually the smart buy.
Tired of the drip?
Send the brand, the symptom, and your city, and you'll get an honest read on whether this is a cartridge or a new faucet.
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