Faucets are available in all types and styles, whether for the kitchen, bathroom, or garage. There are the standard chrome faucets with compression valves and there are those with ball valves. They come in all finishes like stainless steel and colored enamel finishes.
To learn more about your faucet, below I’ll discuss the different parts of a faucet you’ll encounter when trying to dissect or repair your faucet.
The basic parts of a faucet are:
a) The tail:
b) The distance between the pieces of the tail.
c) The mounting nut that holds the faucet to the sink.
d) The supply tube to supply water to the faucet.
e) Shut-off valve to control the water supply when repairs are needed
f) The aerator that is responsible for mixing the water that comes out of the spout with the air to avoid splashing
g) The control valve (there are several control valves that will be discussed below)
There are some faucets with compression valves that separate the hot and cold. The only difference between compression valves and all the others is that it will have a rubber washer at its base that compresses against a valve and shuts off the water.
Other faucets have ball valves and are usually found on single handle faucets. The ball valve behaves similar to a car gear stick with the left and right controlling the temperature and the front and rear controlling the flow of the water.
Another type of faucet are those with cartridge-type valves. They are available in single and double handle styles. Dual-handle cartridge-style faucets work much like compression valves, except that less additional pressure is applied when closing the valve. For single-handle cartridge faucets, this is also similar to ball valves, except that the flow is controlled by raising or lowering the handle.
These are basically the different parts of a faucet. Other more complicated faucets may have different parts, but most of the time you will find faucets similar in structure to the ones I have mentioned above.
