New Delta faucet is loud when turned on half way, but it's not water hammer

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Studly

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We just replaced our bathroom faucet with another Delta single handle model. It works fine, except when the water is turned on half way, with the handle in the middle set to warm water, it is really loud. It is not water hammer, it just sounds like lots of water is going through it -- same sound a shower faucet would make when turned on full blast.

When the faucet is turned on all the way, the loud noise gets quiet and goes to a normal level. And if it's half way on and the handle is turned fully to hot or cold, then the sound goes to a normal level, too. So it only happens when the faucet is half way on, and set to warm water.

The sound is loud enough that it can wake you up when sleeping on the next level up.

Does this sound like a faulty valve in the faucet? Our previous faucet wasn't this noisy and we have the same faucet in the upstairs bathroom and that's not loud. One thing I noticed about this faucet is that the handle is really easy to move up and down, moreso than on other faucets.

Any ideas on how to fix it? Thanks for any advice you may have!
 

Jadnashua

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On some of the Delta faucets, you can tighten the bonnet nut (the nut holding the cartridge in place) a slight amount to adjust the tension. But, keep in mind, the new one probably has a nice coating of plumber's grease on it from the factory...as that gets worn away, it tends to get tighter.

Is the flow volume good? Some of those have a filter screen on the inlet. SUre it isn't the shutoff valve underneath at the wall? Have you tried the Delta troubleshooting guide to see what it suggests?
 

Studly

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Is the flow volume good? Some of those have a filter screen on the inlet. SUre it isn't the shutoff valve underneath at the wall? Have you tried the Delta troubleshooting guide to see what it suggests?

Thanks for the tip. Yes, the water volume is really good coming out of the faucet. I'll have to check the Delta guide that you mentioned. I did replace the shutoff valves, put in quarter turn ones, when replacing the faucet. But I double checked that they are open all the way, and I kind of ruled them out because when the faucet handle is to the left or the right, it doesn't make that loud noise. So if one of the shut off valves was making the noise, I'd think that test of going with totally hot water or totally cold would isolate the loud noise. It only happens when the handle is in the middle and turned on at about half way to the back.
 

Studly

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As an update, Delta's troubleshooting guide didn't really address this problem, but we called Delta and they are going to send a new cartridge, so maybe that will fix the problem.

I took off the faucet handle to see if there was anything I could tighten to get the handle so it doesn't move so freely, thinking maybe the problems were related, but this faucet has one of those plastic cartridges with the red tab on it, and it doesn't appear that tightening the bonnet nut had any impact. I'm guessing that on the newer plastic cartridges, you can't just tighten the bonnet nut to tighten the movement of the handle and everything underneath ... is that right?

Also, what does the red tab on the cartridge do? It was flipped to the left, but when I tried it in both positions, it didn't make any difference to the water flow or how the faucet worked.
 
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