Have you noticed that your sink isn't draining as well lately? You wash your hands, and you come back a half hour later and the soapy water is sitting in the basin. Or maybe you have the opposite problem – you’re trying to fill the basin of your sink with water, and the water refuses to stay in the sink, and when you pull up on that rod on the back of your faucet, the basin won’t plug. In both situations, there's one main problem: your sink drain pop-up mechanism!
Not sure what that means? That's OK. Many people aren't familiar with the words "pop-up assembly." Here at Landmark Home Warranty, we know a lot about pop-up assemblies since we provide coverage on different parts of your sink, so we are going to explain what a sink pop up mechanism is, and how it works.
This is a sink pop-up mechanism:
The rod on the back of your faucet that you were pulling earlier to plug the sink is a part of the pop-up assembly.
SO HOW DOES A SINK POP-UP MECHANISM WORK?
It’s actually a fairly simple design. When the lift rod is pulled upwards, it pulls the pivot rod up as well. This pivot rod is attached to the stopper, which is pulled down, effectively sealing the sink.
If your sink isn’t draining properly, cleaning your pop-up mechanism is the first step. If your sink won’t plug with the pop-up mechanism, you will have to replace it with a new one. Luckily both of these problems can be fixed simply and with the same steps! You can go to our next article and learn how to replace or maintaing your sink pop up mechanism on your sink.
If you have a Landmark Home Warranty, you might have noticed that pop-up mechanisms aren’t covered with your home warranty. That's because a pop-up assembly costs less for parts and labor than your service call fee would be. A pop-up mechanism can be purchased for anything between $4 - $11 at most stores. Not only that, it is a cinch to replace – it takes less than 10 minutes. Landmark Home Warranty isn’t going to make you spend a service call fee between $60-$100 on something that doesn’t cost anything near that amount.
If you are interested in purchasing a home warranty that covers large appliances and your home systems, please visit our compare home warranty plans page.