A senior for whom I do some volunteer work has a leaky (thin stream) Moen single handle faucet which is making his water bill go through the roof. The handle is quite loose and if you move it around you can find a sweet spot where the leak reduces to a constant drip (as seen in pic). He is on a very fixed income and the luxury of calling a plumber would mean having to make do without some other essentials.

My question is; how to best determine the cause of the leak in order to try and repair it? I should add that the connections underneath are very inaccessible so I'm trying to avoid having to change the whole thing - that, and the not wanting to be on the hook should anything get damaged.

I will admit that while I've changed the kitchen and bathroom faucet at home, I wouldn't call myself a really handy guy so I'm looking for the easiest yet best fix, which I know isn't asking for much.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice and suggestions.

I have a Moen Wynford Double Handle Widespread Bathroom Faucet that was installed about 3 years ago. It's a high arc faucet.

It leaks.

Here's some background:

I know these sort of faucets can have some residual water sitting on top the aerator when it's turned off. When I test to see just how much it leaks I remove the aerator and dry out the spout with a paper towel.

About 6 months after installation, the faucet started leaking so I purchased and replaced the cartridges. I figured I had a one-off issue and hoped they would last longer than 6 months. There was no calcium buildup on the cartridge that was replaced and it looks intact.

Some months later the faucet started leaking again. I called Moen and they sent valve replacements. I installed the valves. It stopped leaking and then about 6 months or so later it started leaking again.

I said to myself, I must be doing something wrong. All of the help videos on fixing leaky Moen faucets talk about replacing the cartridge and there's no indication of any other known issues.

So I called Moen again. After the initial discussion about the issue, the customer rep said they would send replacement cartridges to me. I asked if I could speak with someone about the installation and what might be the problem. Nope.

I said: Hold on a second. There's something that either I'm doing wrong or a problem with the design or QC. The rep said to the effect: When we send you these cartridges you'll have replaced all the "working parts" of the faucet so there's nothing more to be done. After I installed new cartridges, the leak stopped and then started a matter of months later.

Here's something I noticed (and it's been mentioned in other posts and web sites). After a while, the handles develop a lot of play. Normally when turning a faucet off, one turns the handle to the point where it stops travel. That stop position seems to migrate. There seems to be a lot of play in the handle. (The base of the handle is securely installed and does not turn.) There's not a lot of resistance to it but the play is appreciable. I found videos related to this and the fix was to tighten the phillips head screw connecting the handle to the base. I checked this and the screws were tight.

I'm not sure if the free play I'm noticing is related to the problem but I figured I would mention it.

So I'm ready to forget about Moen and move on to something else. Unfortunately we've coordinated our bathroom fixtures with the Wynford style. The vanity has three holes to facilitate the double handle style.

Any insights will be appreciated.

Hi everyone recently I started to notice that my Moen bathroom faucet is leaking under the cabinet right below the faucet (see red arrow here https://imgur.com/a/WBT5AzX). I called the plumber and they said I would need to contact Moen to order the part but the plumber never told me what part so what failed part could possibly be causing that leak? When I contact Moen what should I tell them there where is it leaking from since I cant show them the photo so posting here for help as you guys can see the photo here. Thanks