Leaking tap repairs
A dripping tap is the easiest fault in the house to ignore and one of the few that costs you money every hour it is left. Jamie repairs leaking taps across Shefford, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the Cambridge area.
Where the water appears tells you what has failed
Search for a dripping tap and you get a hundred guides telling you to change the washer. That advice is right for perhaps half of the taps in this country and useless for the other half. What matters is where the water is coming out, because the position of the leak points straight at the part that has gone.
Water from the spout when the tap is off is a seal inside the valve. Water seeping out under the handle is usually an O ring or the headgear. Water pooling around the base of the spout on a mixer is a body seal rather than anything to do with the valve at all. Water under the sink is a connector or a tail and has nothing to do with the tap itself.
The right part, not a generic one
Ceramic cartridges are model specific. The wrong one will fit and still drip, which is why most attempts at this go wrong on the second visit rather than the first.
Isolated at the tap where possible
If there is a service valve on the tails the job stays local to that tap. If there is not, one goes in so the next repair does not shut the whole house down.
Hard water taken into account
This part of the country is hard water. Scale is what kills cartridges and seats early, so the parts and the seat get cleaned up rather than reassembled over the grit.
How a tap repair runs
Small job, easy to get wrong. This is the order the work goes in so the drip does not come back a fortnight later.
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1
Find out where it is leaking from
Spout, handle, spout base or underneath the sink. Each one points at a different component, so this gets established before anything is dismantled rather than after.
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2
Isolate the supply
Service valves on the tails let the tap be isolated on its own. Where there are none, the supply comes off further back and a valve usually goes in while everything is apart, which makes every future repair on that tap a five minute job.
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3
Strip it down and identify the part
Compression taps take a washer. Quarter turn taps take a ceramic cartridge. Cartridges vary by manufacturer and by model rather than by size alone. The old part gets matched properly instead of approximately.
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4
Clean the seat and fit the new component
A pitted or scaled valve seat will chew through a brand new washer in weeks. The seat is cleaned or recut before anything goes back, then the new washer, cartridge or O ring is fitted and greased correctly.
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5
Reassemble and run it
The tap is rebuilt, the supply brought back on slowly and the tap run hot and cold through several cycles with the base and the underside watched. A drip that only shows up under pressure is still a drip.
The tap work Jamie covers
Kitchen, bathroom, cloakroom and outside taps, repaired where they are worth repairing and replaced where they are not.
Dripping spouts
Worn washers on compression taps and failed ceramic cartridges on quarter turn mixers, matched to the tap rather than guessed at.
Leaks under the handle
Perished O rings and headgear seals letting water weep out around the top of the tap whenever it is turned on.
Water at the base of a mixer
Swivel spout body seals that have gone, which puts water onto the worktop or into the cupboard below rather than down the plughole.
Outside taps
Garden taps that have split over winter, seized spindles and the isolation and check valve arrangement behind them put right.
Leaking connectors and tails
Braided flexi connectors and compression tails under the sink that have started to weep. See burst pipe repair and leak detection.
Taps beyond repair
Where parts are obsolete or the body is scaled through, a new tap is the better answer. Often part of a wider bathroom installation and renovation.
Tap dripping or weeping?
Tell Jamie where the water is coming from and what the tap looks like. That is usually enough for him to turn up with the right part in the van.
Doing it yourself and knowing when to stop
There is no shortage of guides telling you to change a washer in half an hour. On a traditional pillar tap with a service valve underneath, that is a fair description. Plenty of taps are not that job at all. It is worth knowing which one you have before the handle is in pieces and the shops are shut.
The cartridge problem
Quarter turn mixers take a ceramic cartridge rather than a washer. Cartridges are specific to the manufacturer and often to the model. There is no universal part. If the tap is unbranded or the range is discontinued, sourcing the right cartridge is the whole job and it is where most attempts stall.
No isolation valve, no easy job
If there are no service valves on the tails, the water has to come off further back and the tap cannot be worked on in isolation. That turns a small repair into a bigger one. Fitting a valve while everything is apart is cheap and it makes every future repair straightforward.
Seized fittings and old taps
The back nut holding a tap to a sink spends decades in a damp cupboard. On older installations it can be genuinely stuck. Forcing it is how basins get cracked. Some jobs turn into a tap replacement once it is opened up, which is why you get told the possibilities before the work starts rather than after.
Repair or replace
A sound tap with a worn part is worth repairing every time. A tap with a corroded body, obsolete internals or scale right through it is throwing good money after bad. Jamie will tell you which one you have got rather than defaulting to the more expensive answer.
What it costs
Every job is priced and agreed before work starts with nothing added afterwards and no hidden charges. Describe where the water is coming from when you get in touch and Jamie can usually price it over the phone.
Where Jamie works
Tap repairs run across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and into the Cambridge area from the Shefford base. You can check your own town on the areas we cover page, which lists every part of Beds, Herts, Bucks and Cambridgeshire Jamie travels to.
Not sure if Jamie covers your village?
The coverage hub lists every area across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the Cambridge area.
Related plumbing work
Tap jobs usually turn up alongside something else. These are the pages that come up most often on the same visit.
Burst pipe repair
Failed connectors and tails under the sink, which are a pipe problem rather than a tap one. Read more about burst pipe repair and leak detection.
Bathroom installation
New brassware fitted as part of a full room rather than on its own. Read more about bathroom installation and renovation.
General plumbing
The everyday repairs around the rest of the house. Read more about general plumbing services.
If a tap or a connector has let go completely and the water cannot be stopped, the emergency plumber page covers out of hours attendance. A basin that is slow to empty as well as dripping is two separate faults. The draining side sits under blocked drain clearance. Where the leak turns out to be at the cistern rather than the tap, that is covered on toilet repairs and installation.
Leaking tap questions
Why is my tap still dripping after I changed the washer?
Usually because the valve seat underneath is pitted or scaled, so the new washer cannot seal against it. The seat needs cleaning or recutting before a fresh washer will hold. The other common reason is a quarter turn tap that takes a cartridge rather than a washer at all.
How do I know whether my tap takes a washer or a cartridge?
If the handle turns several times from off to fully on, it is a compression tap and takes a washer. If it opens fully in a quarter turn, it has a ceramic cartridge inside. The two are completely different repairs.
Water is coming from the base of my mixer tap rather than the spout. What is that?
That is normally the body seal or O ring where the spout swivels, rather than anything to do with the valve. It is a different part to the one that stops a drip, which is why changing a cartridge makes no difference to it.
Is a dripping tap worth calling someone out for?
It wastes water continuously and on a metered supply that adds up. A drip also puts a constant trickle through the waste, which encourages blockages and marks the sink over time. It is a small job that gets more annoying and more expensive the longer it sits.
My outside tap has split. Can that be repaired?
Sometimes, depending on where it has gone. A split body from frost usually means a replacement. It is worth checking the isolation arrangement inside at the same time so the tap can be drained down before next winter.
Can you fit a new tap if mine cannot be repaired?
Yes. If you are buying it yourself, check the tap hole size and whether your water pressure suits the model before ordering, because low pressure systems will not run every tap on the market properly.
Stop the drip properly
Jamie the Happy Plumber repairs leaking taps across Shefford and the surrounding counties. Right part, seat cleaned up, tested before he leaves.
