New Kitchen Faucet

This was supposed to be the day we put the new faucet into the RV, but when I went to start the truck, it wouldn't start.  Remember it wouldn't start up in Des Moines. And now it has failed to proceed three times.  That's it, the battery has had it.

So a trip to Sam's Club with the old battery and a charge card and now it all needed installed.

The UPS guy delivered the new faucet, and it had the entire kit, but we just need the valve body so it was unpacked in the house.

Looks like the old one, and it had the instructions.  

After Al said he could have put his New faucet in and wouldn't hire it done again, that pretty much sealed it that I would be the installer.

I'm good at ripping stuff apart, so I removed the big long nut that holds the half moon washer and it all came apart.  The old valve has the broken hot water line and the new one is beside it.

From underneath, you can see the white plugs I had put into the lines so we could turn the water back on up in Des Moines.  Those had to come out too.  Note the broken end of the hot pipe.

From here I fed the new pipes down the hole in the counter.  They have to go one at a time.

From underneath I tightened the long nut that holds the half moon washer with a 7/16 ths deep socket and rachet.  Note the teflon tape on the new water lines.  Looks like I still didn't have those plugs out yet.

Here the new lines are plumbed into the water lines from below the floor, and the supply line is pushed over the Tee that is on the bottom of the spout.  It has a coulet grabber mechanism that goes on but doesn't come back off , unless you hold it in while pulling on the line.

These pipes are what I should inspect every now and then.  Especially after the rig has been stored for winter.  If water freezes in these lines it will expand the stainless steel webbing and the plastic pipe inside.

Here are the threaded hose style connections that connect the PEX pipe to the faucet lines.  The PEX is red and blue for hot and cold.  Older rigs may well be all white pipe.  I did not have teflon tape on the old faucet, but I decided that since it is really cheap and I had it on hand, why not use some?  It certainly can't hurt anything.

And this is what I wanted to see!!!!!  Water!!!  And none came out of the plumbing underneath.

We have never had the coach in freezing weather, so it couldn't have frozen while I owned it.  With that said, remember that we bought this rig as a hold over that haden't been sold in 2009. 

It is a 2008 model, so it sat in freezing weather up in Des Moines for its first winter.  Sooooooo,  perhaps the winterization that year left something to be desired.  Or it may just be a failure of new products in their first year of service.  But I seriously doubt it.

We have always used a pressure regulator, but not one of the really expensive models that have the round gage and variable pressure.  Is that really necessary? 

All of these pictures were taken with my little cell phone, so some of the focus suffers, but at least you can tell how things were completed.

I would enjoy comments on how you might have proceeded differently, as I am an accountant not a plumber.  I can run the ten key adding machine quite fast, but wrenches are more of a mystery!

Retired Rod