Poor plumbing fittings?

[T i m]

Hi All,

A family friend recently had a new bath tap fitted with a shower attachment. To give it more 'ooomph' the plumber also fitted a twin pump to the system (that comes on even when you flush the toilet but that's another story).

The plumber didn't want to change the taps on the ceramic basin as he said he would probably break the basin?

So I did it yesterday for them (and I'm an electronics engineer?) and no broken basin?

Whilst plumbing it back in today (I fitted a couple of isolator valves and new plumbing to mate square to the new (shorter) tab bodies) I found it quite difficult to get a positive seal against the taps (a drip every 3 seconds type of thing) and tightening it further just felt 'wrong'? I did nip them up further and it all seems dry now but I don't like it ... ;-(

I noticed the end of the brass tap thread had quite a pronounced chamfer and am not sure how well that would mate against the fibre washer on the tap connector? Is there are special fitting for taps now days?

What have I missed?

All the best .

T i m

[Alex]

Not sure if you meant you had used new tap conectors,if not replace the fibre washers and use a smear of Boss green or similar pipe joining compond,you should not really need this but if it helps what the hell

[T i m]

Hi Alex and thanks for your reply. ;-)

Yes, I had new taps and tap connectors but the connectors din't seem to 'seat' nicely? Looking that the mating face on the tap it seems to have a pretty sharp 'end' (like the end of a leather punch) and not the flat face I would expect required to face against a fibre washer?

I did use some jointing compound and had no problems with the 10 compression joints I did at the same time?

I feel as if I want to face the ends of the tap thread part off in the lathe to give it a nice flat end tather than a fairly severe internal cone? I imagine if you were to tighten the tap connector fully it would simply slice through the washer? That would be ok as long as it maintained a seal and did it equally all round?

It was this poor 'fit' that made me think that things had moved on since my last plumbing endeavours?

Ho hum ..

All the best

T i m

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[John Stumbles]

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The mating end was surely not _as_ sharp as a leather punch? On the ones I've seen you'd never be able to give it enough welly to cut into - let alone through - the fibre washer.

However the internal conical flared section you describe does suggest that the manufacturers are catering for those who wish to make a compression joint straight onto the taps (something I've seen quite commonly on float valves which also tend to have the same sort if internal flare).

Moi, I tend to use Speedfit tap connectors

which make a good joint hand tightened (you mustn't tighten them more than that).

[Z]

In article , T i m writes

[John Stumbles]

...

The inside chamfer on the tap threads is pretty standard. It looks as if you should be able to use a compression fitting with it: I don't know if that's the intention, but I have seen that done occasionally with float valves which have a similar chamfer. For taps I generally use Speedfit tap connectors with rubber washers so can't speak for the traditional tap connectors with red fibre washers, but I'd expect them to mate satisfactorily with no leaks.

Realising that plumbing is next to agricultural engineering in precision (not!) :-)