Here's my DIY tip of the year which I discovered today. It is going to
save me from ever again doing what I consider one of the worst DIY
chores in the book: changing sink taps! thought I'd share it with you.
Those of you who already know it can ignore this!

You know those tap reseating tools? Useless aren't they!? Wrong! In my
opinion, they are useless for saving taps whose seats are really badly
eroded (which they usually are when it gets to the stage where you
can't stop a tap from dripping by tightening down by hand. (Unless you
fancy standing there all day, twisting the reseating die). However,
they are absolutely brilliant as a tool for avoiding that situation in
the first place! Simply use the tool to smooth down the seats of your
taps oce a year - BEFORE they start dripping! It only takes a few
turns of the die to clean up the seat. You'll see it shining in the
light like a ring of polished brass when it's done. That way, I
anticipate you can make your taps last probably ten times as long.

If you dno't do this, what happens is that you get a tiny leak going
past the neoprene tap washer - maybe caused by a little bit of
debris.. this tiny little flow of water, starting off perhaps as
narrow as a strand of human hair, starts to erode a gully in the seat
of the tap. That little gully gets deeper and deeper until you can
eventually feel it with your fingernail, just as though soneone has
sawn a little slot in accross the circumference of the seat. By the
time it gets this bad, it is usually quciker and simpler just to
change the taps rather than try to grind down the seat - at least, if
you are using one of those hand-reseating tools.... But everyone knows
what a horrible contortionist chore that is! So by following my tip,
you can avoid that ordeal perhaps forever more.

Just remember to turn the mains water supply off before you start
dismantling your taps!

Comments welcome.

Alan A

In article ,
(AL) writes:

If you dno't do this, what happens is that you get a tiny leak going
past the neoprene tap washer - maybe caused by a little bit of
debris.. this tiny little flow of water, starting off perhaps as

Actually, it's caused by the washer going hard (which happens
some time before it actually starts leaking). All you need
to do is change the washer before it goes hard. Debris will
be washed away next time you turn on the tap (unless the washer
was already hard in which case it might get embedded in it).

However, I haven't had any taps with washers in the house for
some years now.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?

On 15 Oct 2005 08:06:11 -0700, wrote:

Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?


I (the OP) am in a very-hard-water area. I think that is definitely a
factor.

AL

"AL" wrote in message
...
On 15 Oct 2005 08:06:11 -0700, wrote:

Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?


I (the OP) am in a very-hard-water area. I think that is definitely a
factor.

Me too. Do you have any suggestions for ceramic discs? I'm just about to
fit a 3rd set in 10 years

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (AL) saying
something like:

On 15 Oct 2005 08:06:11 -0700, wrote:

Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?


I (the OP) am in a very-hard-water area. I think that is definitely a
factor.

Same here, and it's a chronic problem in this area.
--

Dave

in 457733 20051016 000333 Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (AL) saying
something like:

On 15 Oct 2005 08:06:11 -0700, wrote:

Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?


I (the OP) am in a very-hard-water area. I think that is definitely a
factor.

Same here, and it's a chronic problem in this area.

Be grateful - soft water is bad for your heart!

wrote in message
ups.com...
Fitted plenty of taps, changed plenty of washers but I've never had to
re-seat or change a worn out tap in my life - they last forever AFAIK -
or until butchered by DIYer with stillsons or footprints. Could this be
a soft-water area problem only?


=============
Wickes (and probably others) sell taps and mixers marked 'Trade' and these
don't seem to last forever. I've got a pair in the kitchen ready to be
replaced which have only been in about eight years.

Cic.

In article ,
AL wrote:
You know those tap reseating tools? Useless aren't they!? Wrong! In my
opinion, they are useless for saving taps whose seats are really badly
eroded (which they usually are when it gets to the stage where you
can't stop a tap from dripping by tightening down by hand. (Unless you
fancy standing there all day, twisting the reseating die). However,
they are absolutely brilliant as a tool for avoiding that situation in
the first place! Simply use the tool to smooth down the seats of your
taps oce a year - BEFORE they start dripping! It only takes a few
turns of the die to clean up the seat. You'll see it shining in the
light like a ring of polished brass when it's done. That way, I
anticipate you can make your taps last probably ten times as long.

It's less damaging to use de-scaling fluid - unless of course the seat has
been damaged by not replacing a worn out washer. And de-scale the threads
at the same time. A build up of scale in the threads can prevent a tap -
even with a good washer - from shutting off properly.

--
*Why is the word abbreviation so long?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

AL wrote:
the neoprene tap washer

They don't use that nowadays, they use "newpreen", thereby
lies the rub.