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My husband and I are currently renting a three bedroom, single family home in a nice little neighborhood that is a mix of home owners and renters. The house itself was built in 1977 and has a floor plan that was exceptionally popular for houses built around that time in our area. At one time, the house was very well cared for — the kitchen was renovated and the backyard had an irrigation system. After it was turned into a rental, it has not been kept up and there are quite a few things that are falling apart.
Our landlord is nice, but unless it is an emergency (like when our water heater started spraying hot water everywhere), he is very much hands off and a bit… uh, frugal. We do not like to bother him unless we absolutely have to so we either just live with a minor inconvenience or we try to fix it ourselves.
About two months ago, I thought I broke the faucet of our guest bathroom. When using real candles in the bathroom, I always place the small candle in the sink so if it tips, it is not as much of a fire-risk. Even more so in this old house which is made of wood and extremely dried out. Unfortunately, we were trying new candles with wood wicks, and I learned pretty quickly that wood wicks burn a lot hotter than traditional wicks.
It melted the aerator!
Of course, at that time I did not even know what an aerator was. I thought I had damaged the whole faucet and was worried we would have to replace it. Since we are saving money for both the arrival of our son in September and fixing the air conditioning in my car, the thought of spending money on a faucet did not sit well with me.
So I did the mature thing: I procrastinated.
We have had numerous guests over the last month, and every time they would go to wash their hands, they would either get sprayed with water or accidentally spray water all over. Determined to try to save money and avoid having to eat the cost of a whole new faucet, I finally searched the Internet and discovered that aerators are removable and easily replaceable. Turns out, it was just the plastic screen insert that melted anyway!
So what is an aerator?
An aerator is that piece at the end of your faucet where the water comes out through a screen. It separates the stream of water so that it does not splash and spray everywhere. Aerators can also be used to limit the amount of water for conservation purposes. Learn more about faucet aerators on Wikipedia.
The Fix
Sometimes you can unscrew an aerator with just your hand, but ours was stuck tight. A few gentle taps with a hammer loosened the aerator body so we could unscrew it. I confirmed that the screen on the insert had melted and needed replacing so we took the whole thing — aerator body and insert — with us to Home Depot. We searched around the plumbing/faucet aisles until we found the section with replacement parts for sinks.
Almost immediately, we found an identical replacement insert of the correct size, and it was only $2.99!
We happily purchased the insert. Once back home, we put in the new aerator insert and chose the correct rubber washer for our aerator. Aerators either are male (the ridges for the screw are on the outside) or female (the ridges for the screw are on the inside) and depending upon your aerator, you need a larger or smaller washer for a correct fit. Our aerator was female so the smaller washer worked for us. We assembled the aerator and screwed it back onto the faucet.
Viola! The water streamed beautifully and calmly out of the faucet.
It was wonderful to fix the faucet ourselves for under $3, and now our guests will no longer have water splashing and spraying all over them when they wash their hands!
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