Faucet Installation in Wilmington, CA - The Complete Guide
Fitting a tap is a short job made long by three things: the wrong hole configuration, seized angle stops, and corroded mounting hardware on an old fixture.
Getting the Configuration Right
Hole count and spread are fixed by the sink or countertop, not by the faucet. A single-hole faucet can be adapted to a three-hole sink using a deck plate, and that works well. The reverse does not - a widespread set needs three holes at the correct spread and cannot be made to fit a single-hole basin.
Measure the spread from the centre of one outer hole to the centre of the other. Centerset fittings are typically 4 inches; widespread are typically 8. They are not interchangeable.
Kitchen installations add accessories: side sprayers, soap dispensers and filtered-water taps each need a hole. If the new faucet has an integrated pull-down sprayer, a previously used sprayer hole becomes a spare to be plugged or filled with something else.
What Usually Slows the Job Down
Angle stops. These isolate the fixture, and in a house of this age they are often decades old, sometimes corroded, and frequently will not close fully. A stop that does not shut means the whole house has to be isolated to do a fixture job, which is why replacing them during a faucet install is such good value.
Mounting hardware. The nuts securing an old faucet to the underside of the sink sit in a damp environment for years and frequently seize. Removing them is the slow part of many installations, and it is invisible from above.
Supply connectors. Flexible connectors have a finite life and fail without warning. Fitting new ones with a new faucet is standard practice and should be in the quote.
Flow Rate and What It Feels Like
New lavatory faucets are limited to 1.2 gallons per minute at 60 psi in California. That is a meaningful reduction from older fixtures, and people occasionally worry about it.
In practice, modern aerators shape the stream to feel fuller than the volume suggests, and hand-washing is not a task where raw flow rate is the constraint. The reduction is far less noticeable than the equivalent change in showerheads was.
It matters more for how you diagnose problems later. If flow at a new tap seems poor, the cause is far more likely to be a partially closed angle stop or debris caught in the aerator during installation than the rated flow - and both are quick to check.
If This Is Part of a Remodel
SB 407 applies to property built on or before 1 January 1994, which covers almost all housing in this ZIP, and alterations or improvements trigger the obligation to replace non-compliant fixtures.
A kitchen or bathroom remodel is exactly that trigger. Planning for compliant fixtures throughout - toilets at 1.28 gpf, lavatory faucets at 1.2 gpm, showerheads at 1.8 gpm and shower valves meeting the anti-scald requirement - is straightforward at the design stage and disruptive when discovered later.
The related pages are toilet installation and shower installation, where the anti-scald valve rule in particular catches people out.
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