Dodgy basin tap - suggestions ?

Hi All

Seems to be 'plumbing month' at the moment. Replaced the bath/shower mixer because it appeared to be somewhat 2nd-hand (though it was installed in a new build) and repairing the washers etc would still leave the gouge marks where somebody had (ab)used a big adjustable wrench...

...and now the basin hot tap in the other bathroom's playing silly wotsits.

Symptoms - sometimes the tap behaves perfectly - other times you can only get a trickle of water through it. Used to understand the 'old-fashioned' taps with washers - but I suspect this one - though it looks like a conventional basin tap, works differently.

Taps look like this

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(usually!) friendly plumbers' merchants weren't much use - had replacement mechanism for the 'modern' type (with a knob rather then 'cross-shaped' handle) - but didn't seem to think that these would fit my tap...

So - likely to be a simple 'strip down, clean up, reassemble' job - or something more fundamental, do you think ? The cold tap does two complete revolutions from 'off' to 'full on'

- the hot one's binding up after about 1 revolution..

Guidance appreciated! Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian Brentnall
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> Local (usually!) friendly plumbers' merchants weren't much use -

Well, if your taps are the same sort as the SF ones, they're not quarter-turn jobbies with ceramic discs for seals - so presumably they *do* have washers of some sort.

Sounds to me as if the washer has become detached from its piston, and sometimes continues to block the hole even though you have wound the piston out of the way. Have you dismantled it to see what's going on?

Reply to
Roger Mills

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>>> Local (usually!) friendly plumbers' merchants weren't much use -

I'd have thought so...

That's the next job Just that I'm not familiar with the way these work - seems from looking at the web that there's a threaded shaft with the washer riding up & down it on a brass section - so maybe I'm looking at accumulated crud on the moving parts...

I'll dive in & see

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian Brentnall

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>>>>> Local (usually!) friendly plumbers' merchants weren't much use -

If they're like mine, they work like this:

The shaft has a largish course male thread at its lower end, and a smaller diameter plain part which pokes up through the top of the body. It is retained at the top end by a circlip, so it can rotate but not move up and down.

The shaft's thread engages with a female thread in a 'piston' - which can move up and down, but not rotate - often being hexagonal on the outside. There is a rubber washer at the bottom of the piston.

When you turn the tap handle clockwise, the piston moves down, pressing the washer against the seat and stemming the flow. Turning it the other way lifts the piston, and allows water to flow - *unless* something has become deranged.

Reply to
Roger Mills

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>>>>> Local (usually!) friendly plumbers' merchants weren't much use -

Sometimes the brass section that goes up and down goes too far and then jams in the shaped hole and cannot retract properly.

Reply to
John

That description, of not being able to turn it as far as it should go, rang a bell somewhere in the back of my brain. I fixed a very similar problem on my hot bath tap some years ago.

As well as the main "stop the flow" washer there are usually one or more O-rings which stop water getting out of the shalt opening when the tap is on. What happened in mine was that these had failed and water was getting into the piston arrangement. Being non-compressible the water was preventing the two halves of the piston sliding into one another and so preventing the main washer being lifted. Once I'd understood that it was a

10p fix but getting there cost me a large proportion of my sanity.

Take it apart and see if it's wet where it shouldn't be. If it is, dry it and reassemble. It'll work for a while then fail again but at least you'll know what's going on.

Reply to
Calvin Sambrook

Thanks for the comments. I had the offending tap to bits today, and there was an amount of greasy grot in & around the threads. Reading your mail, it might well be tap grease mixed with hot water.....

Couldn't find anything more suitable so used a tiny bit of car grease on the threads (I know!) and it's all running smoothly now. If it all goes wrong again, I've got a 'selection box' of o-rings in the shed, and I'll know to try replaceing them as 'Plan B'

(Having lived in '2nd-hand-houses' for most of my life - was amazed at how easily this newish tap came apart - hardly any grunting & swearing at all )

Thanks Adrian

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian Brentnall

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