Cleaning Sink with Bag of Vinegar: 1/5

Have you seen the pins about how to clean your sink? The aerator accumulates mineral deposits over time and this can be particularly difficult to clean. I have seen several pins that say you can tie/rubberband/whatever a bag of vinegar around the faucet and let it soak. This was a horrible, painful failure. I'm not referencing anyone's specific pin because, well, it is nobody's fault but my own. Oh, and the faucet's. And perhaps our hard water. See the offending faucet? It's in the trash.

Not only did I not get the faucet clean, but I broke the entire faucet. Then I tried to install the new one and failed at that too. After hours of wasting my own unskilled labor as well as several of the husband's, we ended up calling a plumber in the end. So that's the short version. If you care to hear the whole story, keep reading.

When I tried to tie the bag of vinegar to the faucet, it just plain didn't work. I couldn't get it sealed, so the vinegar kept leaking out of the bag and running down the underside of the faucet. After several attempts I gave up. I also realized I could hear a dripping sound under the sink. Somehow, and nobody knows how the some is, the vinegar was getting from the sink into the cabinet below. Of course I was frustrated and knew I'd have to chase that problem down, but first I was determined to get that aerator clean!

I figured I could unscrew the aerator with my hand. Nope. So I grabbed some pliers. Nope. The crust had gotten so thick that the aerator was stuck tight. Then I remembered my brother gave us a vice grip. Awesome! A chance to use it, right? Yeah. Rather than working through the green and white mineral deposits, I ripped the faucet in two. Seriously. I'm not that strong. I don't know how it happened. I would guess that it was cracking already which is how the vinegar was getting through. It's too bad nobody got to see the look of horror on my face when I realized what I had done.

Off to Home Depot I went to pick out a new faucet. I talked to friends, watched online videos, and read how-to articles. With a little more help from the vice grip (apparently I didn't learn my lesson after the first incident), I finally got it installed! And it was leaking. The husband and I tried and tried to fix the leaks. My mother-in-law gave me some great tips but sadly I still had one last leak we couldn't figure out. We just had to call a plumber.

What was the problem? (By the way, if you're still reading this boring story, I'm impressed. Don't you have something more interesting to do?) The problem was one lousy nut. I put it on upside-down. I didn't know you could even get it to go on upside-down, so I would never have solved this on my own. The water was then creeping up the threads. Doh. The plumber was very kind and told me not to be embarrassed. But of course I was mortified. On the bright side, the new faucet is squeaky clean!