Strange taps

[The Medway Handyman]

Fitted some basin taps for a customer, couldn't get a tap connector flexible or otherwise to seal on the hot. Nut would do up tight but the washer wasn't meeting the seat & the flexible could turn.

He'd bought them from our local 'proper' plumbers merchant not one of the sheds. I returned it & the hot tap in the new set was the same, but the cold was again fine.

Ended up using the body of the cold & the bits from the hot to build a new tap.

Looked at the thread with a magnifying glass, seemed perfect.

Could it have been thicker plating on the hot?

[Roger Mills]

A tap connector usually has a little spigot which stands proud of the washer, and needs to fit into a recess in the tap. If the tap doesn't have a recess - or it isn't deep enough, the spigot bottoms on the tap leaving the washer floating instead of being compressed. I've had one or two cases where I've had to file off part or all of the spigot to get it to seal.

[The Medway Handyman]

I've come across that as well Roger, but it wasn't the case in this instance. The nut stopped turning before the spigot entered the recess. Very odd.