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Sealing around sanitary ware and kitchen worktops
Problems with taps are a relatively common occurrence and as a self-managing landlord it is certainly worth honing your tap fixing skills. Hopefully these guidance notes will wet your appetite for fixing taps. So roll up your sleeves and prepare to get wet - but hopefully not too wet!
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Often a dripping tap just needs a new washer. Continuous dripping will eventually cause staining of the sink or bath. First turn off the water supply at the main stopcock. Open the tap to let the water come through. Then put the plug in the sink or bath to avoid losing small parts down the outlet, before you start taking the tap apart.
Take the capstan off by prising out the centre and then undoing the screw below and then the capstan will come off. That will expose the brass tap mechanism below and you can get a spanner onto that and unscrew it. Then you can see the tap washer - the little rubber washer that goes up and down and if it's worn then that will cause the tap to drip. You can either replace the washer or turn it over and use the other side.
A second common problem is that a tap doesn't work because the bit that holds the tap washer doesn't move up and down far enough. In this case, the tap doesn't open very far - it shuts off with no problem, but it doesn't open very far. What you can do then is dismantle the tap mechanism. You can turn the bit that the capstan was attached to, as if you're closing the tap and if you turn it far enough the middle bit will fall out. What you usually find is that there's a build up of muck and grease behind there, which is stopping it moving as far as it could do. Scrape all that out, clean it up and put it back together. Then you'll find that it opens further.
The third problem often encountered with taps is that they don't open at all because part of the mechanism has sheered off. Some taps, instead of having turned brass components have cheap cast components. They're usually the taps that are more cosmetically pleasing - they have a higher neck, and the mechanism is longer, to give an ornamental effect. But the casting can break and then the capstan just turns round without the sealing bit actually moving up and down. The solution to this problem is to buy a new tap mechanism and replace the old one as described above.
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The fourth problem with cheap taps is that some are made of plastic. If the body of the tap is actually made of plastic the thread that the pipe connects to can crack as it ages and becomes brittle. Then water starts squirting out, which manifests itself as a leak underneath the basin or sink. The only solution in this case is to replace the whole tap. You can buy a pair of taps and put a new one on.
If you're going to replace a tap - turn the water off; open the tap; let all the water out and then disconnect the tap connector from the tap underneath the sink. Then slacken the nut that holds the nut in place. Do be careful - when you get your spanner onto that nut, don't just heave on the spanner, because it can easily end up bearing against the porcelain of the basin and will just crack it - you'll just crack the basin.
It may be possible instead to use a spanner to hold the plastic nut underneath the tap and then getting hold of the spout of the tap and using that to turn the whole tap so the nut stays still and the whole tap turns. That way you've got less risk of breaking the porcelain by the spanner bearing against it. The nut that holds the tap in place of course, doesn't have to be very tight - it doesn't have to be watertight because it's not performing any sealing function, it's just performing a locating function and it doesn't even have to perform that very well, because the pipe connecting to the tap has a steadying effect - so it doesn't have to be too tight. However some taps won't turn like this because their shank and the hole in the basin is square, to deliberately stop it turning when in use.
Kitchen and basin taps have a 1/2" BSP (British Standard pipe thread) connecting thread, whereas bath taps have a 3/4" connecting thread, so don't go and buy the wrong ones. If they've run out of bath ones, don't suppose you can just get away with using basin ones. Also you may find some taps have a longer thread, so when you take one off and put a new one on if the thread's not long enough to reach the tap connector which is on the rigid copper pipe work then you are in trouble, but what you can do is take the old tap with you to the hardware store and make sure that either the new tap is long enough or you can buy a tap extender which is a little brass thing that goes on the thread and effectively makes it half an inch longer.
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Another problem with taps is when the acrylic transparent capstan just spins round and round. The reason for that is that they've been over-tightened and stripped off the little splines that engage with the tap mechanism. For a quick fix, you can use PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) tape and wind it over the male splines of the tap mechanism, which is exposed when you take the capstan off. PTFE tape is available from DIY stores and is used for extra sealing on pipe fittings. Then jam the capstan down on top of that and the PTFE will make it a tighter fit. Another thing you can do is buy for £10 a pair of universal capstans, which have a metal boss with three radial grub screws that fit over the brass splines, and the grub screws tighten onto whatever pattern of splines there happens to be.
There is no universal pattern of splines - you'll find that tap tops are never interchangeable, so you get this metal boss, tighten the three grub screws and then the acrylic capstan fits onto the metal boss. That's one way of doing it if you don't want to change the whole innards of the tap. It doesn't involve any plumbing - you don't have to turn the water off, you don't have to do any pipe work at all.
If you have a problem at the kitchen sink where taps tend to twist round in use, because the nut underneath is loose, they should have anti-rotation washers to hold them steady. Alternatively, you can bed the taps in silicone sealant and let the whole assembly dry for 24 hours.
Taps are more likely to twist in use if you have flexible pipe going to the tap underneath the basin. If you have rigid copper pipe work that will keep the tap still, but if a flexible braided pipe has been used that won't have any restraining effect on the tap at all, so you may find that it turns around a little bit every time you use it. You can fit a one-piece mixer tap, which has a single neck for the water to come out of. That can't turn round of course, because it's located by its two supply connections.
Sometimes the tap can leak below the basin because the fibre washer in the tap connector is worn. If this is the case turn off the water, unscrew the tap connector, dig out the old fibre washer with a screwdriver and put a new one in. It is a good idea when conducting maintenance visits, to carry fibre washers and tap washers in case a problem is found.
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