Today I took on the task of replacing one of the faucets in my bathroom. The original plan was to replace both of them. It has since become clear that it is a good thing I didn't try to take up the plumbing profession. Not that I did anything stupid.
I did first shut off the water before I started. I started with the faucet that was driping. In fact, everything was going very smoothly for quite a while, I replaced the old faucet and turned the water back on, and no leaks! And no drips or leaks! Then I started replacing the drain, since the new one came with the new circular thing that sits in the bottom of the sink and pops up and down, and all the associated parts to that. Well, thats where things started to go bad. Upon removing the old one, I found the massive hair clog that I suspected was there since I moved in. Pretty disgusting. I followed the directions for putting it all back together with the new parts, and it seemed simple enough.
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. I turned the water on to make sure it drained and didn't leak. Unfortunatly it did both. It was leaking around the rubber ring in that went in the bottom of the sink and around the P joint which I had not replaced. After fiddling with it for about 4 hours, adding plumbers tape here and there, trying to reuse old parts and realizing that wouldn't work either, I am here to say that it is still leaking, and now in a 3rd spot as well a the first two. Luckily this only happens when the water is running. I have no idea what to do next, other than not use that sink.
Well.. if you figure it out... i have a pipe that's leaking too ; ) nevermind that i can get the apartment people to fix it..
After further analysis, I blame the sink. It looks to be messed up in more places than one. I think I could get the rest of the pipes to stop leaking if I spent a little time, but no point in that. I'll just not ues that one until I replace the whole thing... hopefully sooner than later. In the mean time, I've decided on the rest of the sinks I'll just replace the faucet and leave the drain in place (well, maybe try to clean out any clogs but no new parts). Even thou I'm pretty sure I could, there's just no real added benefit - I'll just wait until I redo the whole bathroom. To answer your question, best to have the apartment fix it guy take care of it... my track record still isn't too good.