Two nights ago, kitchen faucet suddenly lost hot water pressure, giving me just a trickle of hot water.
The cold water came out fine. I quickly checked my water heater and all the other sinks in the house – they all looked fine, and most importantly, no leaks anywhere. I also checked my dishwasher, on the same hot water line as my faucet, and it had hot water going to it okay. I planned on calling my plumber in the morning and quickly ordered a replacement faucet on Amazon, which would be delivered in 3 days, so the plumber could replace the faucet, should that be required.
With time the next morning, I checked online for my symptom “low hot water pressure in kitchen sink” and was pleasantly surprised to find a few posts on the topic. The first one I found provided me with hope I could fix the problem myself! All the other suggestions I found looked to be more complicated and might ultimately require a professional plumber to resolve.
I cleaned out the stuff I had stored under the sink to get to the plumbing.
After wrapping a kitchen towel around the hot water pipe, I turned off the hot water valve to the tube connecting to my faucet and started loosening the nut on the tube. I got some expected leakage and continued to disconnect the tube. Disaster! Hot water gushed from the supply valve. While fighting the water, I tried closing the valve tighter, but the water continued to gush. I managed to get the tube reconnected and tightened the tube nut. Water all over the cabinet floor and flowing onto my wooden kitchen floor. The two kitchen towels I had readied couldn’t sop up enough of the gushed water. Fortunately, the water wasn’t scaldingly hot and the little bucket I had ready held the water I could wring from the towels.
My face, arms, waterproof watch, and t-shirt were soaking wet and in frustration, I cleaned up the water and was ready to call my plumber. I calmed down, though, and decided to give it one more try. I went down to my hot water tank in the basement and turned off the main hot water valve as well as the cold water valve leading into the water heater. I got a few more kitchen towels and started again.
With my small adjustable wrench, I loosened the nut for the hose to the faucet. I got the expected little leak, but this time, no more. Whew! I continued to disconnect the hose and put it into my little bucket (sitting in a larger plastic bin, just in case).
As instructed in the video I found, I turned on the faucet, first to cold, then to the middle to mix hot and cold. Since there was no hot water pressure from the hot water hose, some of the cold water went into the faucet’s mixing chamber and flowed back out through the hot water tube into my bucket. In a few seconds, the slow trickle through the hot water tube became a gush. I turned off the faucet and saw there was something that had been forced back from the faucet through the tube, to my bucket.
Unlike the instruction video’s little black flecks, mine was a fairly notable chunk. I turned the faucet on and off a few more times to see if any more debris came out. None did.
Feeling fairly confident, I re-attached the faucet’s hot water hose to the valve, towel-dried the remaining water, went back downstairs, and turned on the hot and cold water valves on my water heater. Back upstairs, I turned on the hot water valve to the faucet. A little seepage, so I tightened the tube’s nut and closed the hot water valve a touch. That stopped the seepage. I turned on the faucet.
Hooray, the fix worked. Hot water flow has been restored and the faucet works normally!
The little piece of debris looks like a piece of a rubber gasket. I have no idea where it might have come from. Maybe, though, there’s another piece of it in the hot water turnoff valve under the sink that kept it from closing tightly, causing my gusher. Anyway, I’m going to post a suggestion on the instructional video I found to close the hot water tank water valves as I did, to provide an extra layer of insurance.
Despite the little mishap, I’m happy to have saved at least $150 in a plumbing service call. And I’m happy to have my hot water pressure back to normal in my kitchen faucet! I’m going to keep the new faucet after it arrives for the next time I have a plumber in to replace my now aging kitchen faucet.
Thoughts from New Albany 