Cold supatap in neighbours house is extremely stiff to turn - top nut comes undone easily but even with severe brute force the body of the tap will not contine to rotate as apparently is should do to allow the body to drop away from the fixed part.
I've tried working it backwards and forwards, soaking it in penetrating oil as best I can through the undone top nut, but it just goes very solid when the instructions imply it should just undo.
Am I missing something?
Blimey how old must that be? They haven't made them for years surely?
In article , Rory writes
You usually have to open the tap a bit before the top part will undo completely and disengage from the bottom part which should then just unscrew further and then detach itself.
I assume that it is tight in normal operation too ie. just turning on or off and does the tap open to pass water at all?
They are very simple inside so it's difficult to imagine what could have sized up, the operating thread is very coarse and is brass IME.
My suggestion would be to dismantle the hot one and see if you can gain any insight into the failure from what you see there. Remember that the water flow should turn off with the built in auxiliary valve once the body drops off so there's no need to turn off the water.
I had a GF once who had Supataps.
Come to think of it, her name was Shirley .
You know, thinking about this (I'm not at the house now) I undid the top nut as much as possible but I'm sure the gap between the moving part and the stem (where the top nut is) narrowed as the tap was opened - which doesn't make any sense at all as it should be left hand threaded.
The cold was extremly tight - it's been completely messed up by the householder trying to open it with pliers.
That's a really good idea - thanks! The hot one works fine. I'm at the point now where the next step is to replace them anyway so once I'm armed with another pair of taps it doesn't really matter what happens.
They're the original taps from when the house was built, approx 1956. It also has an unusual single syphonic toilet, which has caused some fun too.
I was using a set today and you are right it is def a LH thread on the tap, the tabs on the moving part move to the right when the tap is being opened and the (turning) body should descend. The closing up business seems v strange.
The ones I look after are c1960 and are fine apart from the chrome having worn through over the years, try getting washers now though, I cleaned out our local ironmonger a while back when he said he couldn't get them any more.
Classic - we had them at home when I was little...!
All the best with it.
Daniel
I bought a 'kit' of assorted tap washers when I started up as TMH. I'm sure it includes some Supatap washers so let me know if you need any.
I think we now have 3 or 4 of each size so should be ok for quite some time but thanks for the offer, I'll keep it in mind.
I got both sizes (sink and bath) from B&Q only a couple of years ago.
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