Tag Archives: Water Supply

Plumbing Diy, Replacing Taps

Posted on by Scott
carolyn

Plumbing is an aspect of home improvement that often comes about without choice. It is important to take care of the plumbing of your property in order to avoid emergency situations and to ensure that you are getting the best from your plumbing system.

When it comes to replacing taps it can often be more complex than you may realise at first. Replacing taps can either be required as part of the installation of a new bath/basin or because your old taps have worn down. You may, however, just wish to replace your taps simply on a more cosmetic basis.

It is important to understand how many ‘holes’ your sink has when it comes to changing your taps. The amount of holes will determine whether you can install two separate taps or whether you will have just the one serving both your hot and cold needs. If there is one hole you are restricted to the one tap and you will require a mono-bloc mixer when it comes to replacing your taps. With one hole you will have two diameter pipes coming out of the hole, one for hot and one for cold. It there are, however, two holes you are able to fit two separate taps to your sink, giving you a tap for hot water and a tap for cold water.

Ok now you have some basics about what to look for in your pipe work we can move onto the removal of your old taps. The first thing you need to ensure you do is to disconnect the water supply and then turn your taps on fully to drain any water left in your system. The way in which you cut off your water supply depends on what sort of water supply you are dealing with. If connected to the mains you should turn off your indoor stop valve. If your hot and cold taps feed off pipes from a cistern you should have a gate valve/mini stopcock available to turn off. The stop valve can be found alongside the cold water tank.

You should then use a wrench (crowsfoot spanner) or a tap tool to undo the nut, which connects the supply pipes to the taps. You will probably experience some water coming from the pipes at this point so ensure that you have a cloth ready then loosen the nut that is holding the taps in place and remove them from the sink. You then need to clean the area the taps fit into as well as replace any old sealing compound.

Before you go ahead and fit your new taps you need to compare the pipe connections on the old taps to the new taps. If they are longer then you will need a shank adapter in order to make them fit.

When it comes to actually fitting your new taps you have to check to see if the tails of the new taps are plastic. If not a connector is required to prevent damage. One end of the connector fits onto the tail and the other provides a connection to existing pipes. To fit the taps you should position the tap in the mounting hole in the basin, ensuring that the washers are in place between the tap and the sink and when the tap is securely in place the supply pipes can be connected.

When your taps are firmly in place and have been securely connected to the pipes you can then turn your water supply back on. Once your water is on you should check for any leaks; if any appear they can normally be resolved by tightening your joins.

Dave

Locating and Fixing Leaks

Posted on by Scott
Jo Harris

Leaking joints or leaking pipes are the common plumbing problems which you can solve yourself.

Locating the Leak

Before you start to look out for solution, first locate the leak – the source of problem. It is always the leak where you see a puddle of water or dripping off water. It may be somewhere high in the plumbing configuration. For instance leak may be present in the drainpipe of the overhead sink and you get a puddle in the basement. To locate the leak, try to hear the sound of water to reach the source. A listen device may help you here as it amplifies the sound. If the water is dripping from the ceiling or staining it, the source of leakage is above it. If you see a stained wall, then leakage is there in the section of the pipe. Sometimes it becomes difficult to trace the leak if there is no stain or dripping of water.

Fixing the Leak

After you have located the leak, turn off the water supply immediately, which is most important in case of major leakage. You can do it either at the main shut-off valve or the fixture shut-off valve. Now you may need to replace the damaged portion of the pipe. The chance is you may not be that experienced at plumbing job, so in that case, you need to call a plumber to do this. But until the pipe gets replaced, you can use temporary solution to stop small leaks. Remember, these solutions are for small leaks only.

Tighten the joint if the leak is at a joint. To temporarily stop the leakage, you can go for a pipe patch. You may purchase a patch kit for plumbing leaks from a hardware store. You can also make one at home using a piece of heavy rubber and hose clamp. You can also use a rubber pad and two plates which can be bolt together. Just place the piece of rubber over the leak in the pipe and tighten it placing metal plates over it. These metal plates compress the rubber. If the pipe is otherwise sound, this method can solve this leakage problem for long.

Another efficient but temporary solution is wrapping the waterproof tape over the leaking spot or you can close the leaking hole by rubbing the special compound. Other alternatives are inserting a self-tapping plug or applying epoxy tape. Before applying all these methods to fix the leaks, just make sure that pipe is dry.

For major leaks, only replacement of a pipe is the right solution. And it would be better if you don’t try to do it yourself.

Leigh