A sink sprayer that would not go back home
Sink sprayers are supposed to come out,, do the work,, and go back home. If they stay out, now you have a little chrome animal on the counter and everybody is pretending not to see it. I do not like a fixture that refuses to return.
I fixed one where the hose kept catching underneath. The client said she had to shove it back with both hands. I said do not shove plumbing unless you know what is receiving the shove. That sounds like a joke maybe, but it is a real rule. A hose under a sink can be wrapped around seven bad decisions.
The cabinet under the sink was full because under-sink cabinets are where cleaning bottles go to form a government. There were sprays, sponges, dishwasher tabs, a plastic bag of other plastic bags, and one bottle with no label that I refused to trust emotionally.
I got under there with a flashlight. The sprayer weight was hung up on the neck of a cleaning bottle, so every time she pulled the sprayer out, the hose came back and hit that bottle like it owed money. The hose wanted a clear path. It did not have one. That was the whole sermon.
She asked if I needed anything while I was under there. I said less bottles would improve the whole country. She laughed and then moved the blue spray after I pointed at it, which helped more than laughing. Laughing is fine but it does not clear a hose path by itself.
I reset the weight, moved the bottles, and checked that the hose dropped straight. Then I had her pull the sprayer out and let it return. We did it a few times because one good return can be luck. Three good returns is a pattern.
When it slid back smooth, she said it felt new. I said no,, it just knows where home is now. Plumbing likes a path. People make it complicated by storing a whole store under the sink and then blaming the little hose for getting confused.
There was a moment where I bumped my shoulder on the disposal pipe and she asked if I was okay. I said yes because pain under a sink is usually more surprise than injury. Still, I remember it. Under-sink work puts a man in a position where every pipe is too close and every bottle is looking at him sideways.
I told her not to store tall bottles in the hose path. She said she would try, which is what people say when the cabinet is already planning to fill itself again. That is fine. I cannot govern every bottle in the county. But that sprayer went home 5 times in a row,, and 5 is enough for me to write GOOD in the margin.
I still think a sink sprayer should make a person feel competent. Pull, spray, return. That is the whole routine. When it hangs out on the counter, everybody starts nudging it like a dead fish. This one quit doing that,, and the counter looked less embarrassed. That is a small sentence, but in a kitchen it counts as REAL PROGRESS.
Comments are turned off for now. I had a form here once and I do not know where the messages went,, which is not a system.