The hot water in my bathroom sink is too hot. The sink is too small to accept a plastic bowl to do the mixing. Water temperature cannot be changed due to electric boiler having pre-programmed temperature.
The taps are 40cm apart from each other. Sacrificing one tap, is it possible to replace one of the two taps with a mixer tap and bring the water from the other tap with a flexible pipe?
If so, can it be done DIY?
If not, what would it cost me to have the new sink and mixer installed by a plumber? I need to go for the cheapest option.
The cheap, cheap, cheap solution is a plug! Then run hot and cold into the basin, and wash. You don't have to wash under running water.
No. The tap holes are the wrong size. You'll break the basin getting the old tap out. And so on. It's a nightmare job.
What you might try is a thermostatic valve under the basin, but they aren't cheap. You'd fit it to the feed to the hot tap, with a T off the cold feed.
Are both feeds at the same pressure?
That's probably easier to DIY than your suggested solution.
Check the cost of a new basin and tap - around £100 at the cheap end.
Plumber cost - maybe £200? Maybe £400? Get a quote.
You could fit a monoblock mixer in one tap hole and blank off the other. The tails to the taps are usually 8 or 10mm small bore flexi pipe.
Of course.
Have you considered just adding a thermostatic blending valve in the pipework beneath the existing sink and taps? Then you can set whatever limit you like on the hot water.
The hole for a conventional tap can be just slightly larger than 22mm
The hole required for a most/all monoblock mixer taps will have to be
32mm+ . The hole has to accommodate the two 10mm flexi pipes plus at least one threaded rod.
Slightly off topic but related
I used the Split Klick centralising washer for the first time a few weeks back - I wish I had discovered them much earlier as it saves a lot of time when the hole in the sink is perhaps 3 or 4 mm oversize. They are expensive (£2 each in Screwfix, £1.36+VAT at BES) but will centre the tap without trying to hold the tap whilst attempting to tighten the nut under the sink/basin. As delivered they fit 1/2 inch bsp basin taps and if you cut out the inner recessed ring with a craft knife they can be used with 3/4 inch bsp bath taps.
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They also do centralising washers for monblock mixers in single and two threaded rod variants
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One other tip is to throw away the plastic backnuts that secure the tap to the basin and use some brass versions
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I've found that on more than one occasion the plastic nuts are too soft and when tightening up they get to a point and then jump back one thread. Better to get the brass back nuts before you start the job :)
Yes it is exactly that. Several people here have suggested it. It involves tee-ing into the hot and cold feeds to the basin, so you will need to be able to turn everything off, and do some basic plumbing work.
It has two inputs (hot and cold) and one output (hot). You set the desired output temperature with the knob on the valve. If the incoming hot water is higher than that, then it mixes in cold such that the hot coming out is at your preferred temperature. This allows it to reduce the temperature of stored hot water to a safe level at the point of use, and also to eliminate fluctuations in temperature caused other concurrent water demands in the house (within reason!)
My thought entirely. It its a housing association property then there are building regs that relate to preventing hot water exitting any tap from exceeding a certain temp, or is this new builds only ?
I guess if you blocked the other hole up with a bung of some kind, but there could be other solutions I suppose. Most taps in my house have semi flexible connections due to the new basins and sinks having a different position for their taps. Be wary of those convoluted bend once pipes though, after 5 years one sprang a pin hole and squirted water inside the bathroom vanity unit an in your eye if you were unlucky. The ones with a kind of braided look and a plastic outer seem much more reliable. Brian
You could blank one of the two tap positions off, and connect a thermostatic mixer to both hot and cold, plus it's outlet to one tap. You could then adjust that, to provide the perfect temperature in the washbasin.
Alternatively, you could blank one tap position off, and perhaps fit a mixer tap, if the remaining tap hole is large enough to accept a mixer, and the mixer suites both the pressures of your hot and cold water supplies - it may not....
An open vented system (tank in the loft, cylinder in airing cupboard) would need a tap suited to low pressure.
Almost anything is DIY-able, it depends on your tools, skill and experience.
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