As well as being an annoyance, a dripping tap is a waste of water, and a waste of energy if it is a hot tap. Over the long term, leaving a dripping tap can result in an unsightly stain on your bath or sink.
Repairing a drip is easier to fix that you might think, often just a replacement washer is required. We at Professor Plumb would be happy to deal with any of your plumbing issues but would like to share ours skills for this relatively simple fix.
Tools and parts you will need
There are a several different types of taps:
As different taps will have different size washers, it is worth checking which one you need first and taking the old one in as an example or buying a selection so that you are sure you will have the correct size.
Important - you will need to turn of the water supply to the tap, this will either be by turning the supply off completely - usually under or near the kitchen sink. Once done, you should open the tap up fully to check the water is off. A trickle of water may come out but that should be all.
Take of the screw handle. Depending on what type of tap it is you can either just:
Once the handle is removed, you should now see the stem of the tap with a brass nut holding it in place. Unscrew this buy turning it anti clockwise with a spanner, then lift out the tap stem.
The washer is on the bottom of this piece, you need to prise it off and clean any corrosion or scale off the stem with wire wool and a cloth before putting a new washer, the same size back on. You may be able to just push it back on, or it may be held on by a small nut.
Reassemble the tap correctly and turn on your water supply. You should have fixed the dripping tap and have stopped wasting water.
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