Here's another odd job that has been lingering for far too long. The bathroom taps. Useless, crappy things they were. They had a nasty habit of leaking down into the cupboard below at random times. Everything would be fine for a few months then they would get bored and flood out the shelves. Trouble is I could never figure out just where the damn things were leaking from. I've resealed the sink, the fittings, the drain, everything. There was no sign of leakage of the connections or pipes either. Since we planned on replacing the bathroom and the flooding being quite random we decided to live with it. This past week it started getting worse to the point where the shelves were soaking wet. No choice really, time for a replacement.
So, out with the old
and in with the new.
The connectors for the old taps were rusted solid in place to the point where the nuts holding it to the sink had to be cut off with a Dremel tool. Not to mention cutting away all of the caulk I'd used to try to stem the tide of leakage.
New tap, new problems. I was hoping to be able to reuse the existing flexible hose connectors but no. The new tap uses 10mm and the old ones were 8mm. Why???? Answers on a post card please. I managed to get some 10mm connectors but the other ends are different and they don't make the same 15mm threaded connector any more. Now I know why plumbers charge so much. They must fill the office swear jar with around £180 per day. Finally after another jaunt to the shop and some rather clever improvisation in hand crafting a pair of adaptors from some spare copper pipe, voila. No more leaks. Or so I thought.
The shut off valves are attached to the main feeds by what are called compression fittings. This consists of a brass ring or 'onion' which gets compressed onto the pipe and into the fitting when the fixing nut is screwed in. They are a lazy man's easy way of plumbing as you don't need to solder anything. Their big disadvantage is they are very susceptible to twisting which tends to break their seal. Once they start to leak that's it. Retightening only distorts the ring and increases the leakage. You can't get the onion off as its compressed to the pipe so the nut and onion has to be cut off to be replaced. The other problem is by their nature they tend to distort the nut and the fitting as well making them useless.
You guessed it. All the twisting and knocking when installing the new tap caused the compression seal on the other end of the valves to leak. Back to Wickes for a third time to replace the shut off valves.
Finally what should have taken an hour has been 2 days and 3 trips to the supplier to finally get fixed. Plumber, moi? NFW!
Next time out come the pipe cutters and blow torch, no more fiddly bits of brass rings for me.
So, out with the old
and in with the new.
Straightforward would have been nice but that just doesn't happen at the dung heap. As you can see in the bottom picture, the drain is in the way of the water pipes. I had to disassemble all of the drain pipes before I could get a screw driver to the little shut off valves and disconnect the taps. What was lurking inside those pristine looking white pipes was pretty disgusting.
The connectors for the old taps were rusted solid in place to the point where the nuts holding it to the sink had to be cut off with a Dremel tool. Not to mention cutting away all of the caulk I'd used to try to stem the tide of leakage.
New tap, new problems. I was hoping to be able to reuse the existing flexible hose connectors but no. The new tap uses 10mm and the old ones were 8mm. Why???? Answers on a post card please. I managed to get some 10mm connectors but the other ends are different and they don't make the same 15mm threaded connector any more. Now I know why plumbers charge so much. They must fill the office swear jar with around £180 per day. Finally after another jaunt to the shop and some rather clever improvisation in hand crafting a pair of adaptors from some spare copper pipe, voila. No more leaks. Or so I thought.
The shut off valves are attached to the main feeds by what are called compression fittings. This consists of a brass ring or 'onion' which gets compressed onto the pipe and into the fitting when the fixing nut is screwed in. They are a lazy man's easy way of plumbing as you don't need to solder anything. Their big disadvantage is they are very susceptible to twisting which tends to break their seal. Once they start to leak that's it. Retightening only distorts the ring and increases the leakage. You can't get the onion off as its compressed to the pipe so the nut and onion has to be cut off to be replaced. The other problem is by their nature they tend to distort the nut and the fitting as well making them useless.
You guessed it. All the twisting and knocking when installing the new tap caused the compression seal on the other end of the valves to leak. Back to Wickes for a third time to replace the shut off valves.
Finally what should have taken an hour has been 2 days and 3 trips to the supplier to finally get fixed. Plumber, moi? NFW!
Next time out come the pipe cutters and blow torch, no more fiddly bits of brass rings for me.
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