Hello all,

My mother lives in a mobile home and has pex supply lines. She's been in the home since 1998, first owner. Her bathroom faucet had a leak at the female supply connection. I replaced it with a new one; my uncle tried to tighten the old one and broke one of the wings off with pliers and I was concerned it could be cracked.

The crimped coupling is fine and the new female end screwed on fine, but water is following the threads up and out even at low pressure. The tapered washer was in place inside the new female connector when installed. The female connector is on as tightly as I can manage; hand-tightened with another careful 1/2 turn or so with a tool. I didn't want to force it.

I tried two different "for pex" female connectors, less turns, more turns, ptfe compound only, gray "for water lines" tape only (about 5-6 passes), and both. I made sure the tape was applied flatly and evenly by winding it around the end of a pen and using that to work it around (clockwise) so I had more room to work. I covered the faucet supply beyond where the female connector, um, connects. My experience with plumbing is limited and this faucet is driving me bananas. I had to shut off her water for the whole place because the supply lines don't have their own valves, she loved that.

It's difficult to tell if the threads on the faucet supply are damaged (everything is plastic). I couldn't see or feel anything but I realize water (especially pressurized) doesn't require a lot of room to flow. It's like the male and female connection has different thread sizes but it didn't wiggle when I tried it with no tape/compound.

Everyone locally is saying I shouldn't need anything for this type of connection but attaching the female connector without some kind of seal on the threads only makes for a nice indoor fountain.

I'm running out of ideas.

Is there anything else I can try?

I can replace the faucet if that's what it needs but I wanted to see if there were any options left in case I run into this again.

Thank you

Our first problem is that we have no idea if you are doing anything correctly, because from YOUR description, and that is all we have to go on, the two pieces should go together without leaking, regardless if you put any "sealants" on the threads or not.

If the water is off, I would install supply stops and new supply lines. The seal on the supply lines isn't done at the threads, it is made on the internal surface of the faucet where the supply connects, and either tapered plastic or rubber pressing onto the surface. If the surface of the brass or plastic on the faucet is damaged, it will never seal properly. It is possible that the faucet has special connectors that aren't standard thread and specific to mobile home faucets, but that is unlikely. It may be more effective for you time and money to get a plumber on site to do the work. They have the tools and skills to make it a very quick job.



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KCRoto,


Thanks for your reply and advice. Everything is working smoothly now.

The pro said the female end wasn't seating properly in the original faucet but worked fine with the new one.



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