Question: Where Can I Replace This Odd Plumbing Faucet?

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Question: Where Can I Replace This Odd Plumbing Faucet?

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“My outside faucet knob broke off and when I removed the broken knob, I notice that it fit into a piece that was flat on the top and on the bottom but rounded on each side, kind of like in parentheses. I can’t find the replacement at my hardware store since they all fit circular stems.

Here is the Question from Mark:

What are those stems called? And where can I find them?

That’s a great question. And if you go to the website, you can actually see a picture posted of this faucet that has broken off.

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So, Here’s What I Think the Problem Is.

In older homes, I do not know how old your home is, but in old other homes, from the 30s and 20s, a lot of times these homes were fitted with boilers. Boilers were going out of style and heaters and air conditioners were starting to be used. What contractors did was they took the boilers apart, and a lot of times contractors bought those parts to plumb homes. So, you might have an odd fitting.

The second thing this might be Mark is… Wait, you know what? I have Rido, my plumbing subcontractor who can answer this question.

“Rido, what am I looking at here? Is that a galvanized pipe?”
Todd Bird, Host of AskTheContractors.com

Rido: “Yes”

Okay, so we can get a faucet to fit in that, and that’s going to take care of the hole? So you’re not going to see the pipe coming out of the wall. Then you’ll probably have a decorative piece that will go on top before the faucet gets put back in.

There are a lot of unknowns here so…

My Best Advice is to Go To A Specialty Plumbing Store.

There are plumbing stores that sell nothing but plumbing parts. You can send them a picture and they might be able to find the part for you. Just have it delivered. In fact, no matter where you’re at in the world try Red Supply Wholesale Plumbing. You can get them online. They have stuff from who knows how long back? The guy’s been in business forever, and he seems to know where everything is and what part goes where.

Red Plumbing in California. Send them a picture and I think they’re going to put you in the right direction.

I hope that helps, Mark. Thanks for the question and thank you to Rito for being on the job. He helped answer that question.

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