Kitchen taps

[vicky whitworth]

Hello again. About two years ago I bought a pair of old brass taps on ebay for the kitchen sink. I think they are called pillar taps. Anyway, the cold tap drips persistently. The plumber has looked at it twice and re-seated it twice, changed the washers (trying all sorts of different sizes and types) but still it drips. He says there is no more that can be done. The dripping is driving me nuts.
Should I cut my losses and replace the taps, and if so what advice can you give? I chose old taps because modern 'brass' is shiny and more gold coloured and doesn't age. I like the old brass, the weight of the things but I don't want to buy old ones again if I then have the same problem. They weren't cheap.
Help!

 

[Penners]

Taps use a considerable variety of on/off systems, but I assume yours have the conventional rubber washer which screws up and down on to a seat. Unless the seat has been reground so many times that it has dropped below the level that the screw thread can reach, it should be perfectly possible for it to be restored to drip-free performance.

Have you checked that the plumber reground the seat perfectly and fitted the correct size of washer properly?

 

[chuckey]

As said is the seat nice and smooth on the fixed body of the tap, the slightest scratch will cause a small leak. Normally the rubber washer is held on the the jumper with a nut and washer, this also must be watertight and the seating for the back of the washer likewise, else the water leaks through the centre hole in the washer, around the back to find its way out. Also some taps take a dome washer, to mate with a domed recess, flat washers don't work very well on these. If all else fails if the body is a "standard" one (what ever that might mean), it is possible to buy new ceramic cartridges that fit in place of the conventional jumper/head assy. These will also give a 90 degree operation. You will have to search out a real plumbers merchant to buy one - take your old body along to see if it will fit.
Frank

 

[Penners]

take your old body along to see if it will fit.

I tend to do this when I'm buying clothes.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

I tend to do this when I'm buying clothes.

Oh so it was you I saw in Gieves and Hawkes--- :roll:

 

[Penners]

No, that would have been George Clooney. We're often mistaken for each other.

 

[chuckey]

Penners, do you take your old cross head along as well?
Frank

 

[Penners]

More of a dome head in my case, Frank.

 

[CliffordPope]

The seating rim has to be accurately at right angles to the axis of the washer, or it woun't seat with equal pressure all the way round. Some re-cutting devices do not achieve this, and merely follow the possibly innacurate plane already established.
I have successfully recovered a grossly eroded seating by careful shaving with an ordinary chisel to level up the seating, followed by grinding paste on the end of a wooden dowel of exactly the right diameter.
You could try a washer with softer rubber, making one yourself if necessary.

 

[Lime]

The seating rim has to be accurately at right angles to the axis of the washer, or it woun't seat with equal pressure all the way round. Some re-cutting devices do not achieve this, and merely follow the possibly innacurate plane already established.
I have successfully recovered a grossly eroded seating by careful shaving with an ordinary chisel to level up the seating, followed by grinding paste on the end of a wooden dowel of exactly the right diameter.
You could try a washer with softer rubber, making one yourself if necessary.

Yes I'd go along with that.
Also, and often forgotten, is the method used to compress the back of the jumper may be not accurately formed.
(Normally some sort of screw thread operated by the tap)
The point where it presses upon the back of the jumper may not be level and not compress equally all round.
This can cause the jumper to twist or deform.
Usually the threaded part where it compresses the jumper can be filed down flat so that it is presented to the seat in the same plane (parrallel).

 

[robgil]

A lot of older taps use funny washers that cant be bought nowadays.
If you screw it down tight does it stop dripping?