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The kitchen mixer tap was dripping so I bought new ceramic valves to fix it. Turned off the isolater valve under the sink to do the job and when I turned it back on the valve was dripping from the turn screw.
Right, I now have to turn off the hot water supply to change the isolater valve. Go up into the loft turn off the stop cock which is corroded beyond belief and that too starts to leak from the shaft off the handle. It's got to be changed.
I drain down the cold water tank in the loft in order to take off the stop cock which attaches directly to it. Off to the plumbers merchants to see if they have a replacement stopcock of the same type. No, it's a very old fitting and will need to be substituted with a modern 22mm stop cock, tank adapter and copper linking pipe.
All the new parts project further out from the tank than the original. I now have to cut back the old supply pipe and install 3 short lengths of new pipe with 3 elbows in order to properly connect existing to new.
All for a dripping tap. Still got to thoroughly clean out the cold water tank and fit the valve under the sink.
on the plus side your stop cock should work properly now if there was proper leak somewhere!
I've told this before on here, so stop me if you've heard it.
My missis bought some metal plugs for the bathroom sink and bath to replace the manky old plastic ones. They came with new wastes, so it seemed a shame not to use them...
Ended up as a full bathroom refurb, floors, tiles the full works. As I was just tidying away my tools for the final time I dropped a cold chisel in the sink and smashed it. 🤦♂️
I changed the entire tap, just easier and cheaper in the long run, then had to change all taps in the house as I was told they have to match 😂
Please don't tell me this, I have two tap cartridges to change this weekend...
I feel the pain, especially when the cartridges aren't exactly the same. I ended up stripping the ones I bought and used parts of them to fit the existing ones. And don't suggest taking them to the shop as I'd have to turn the water off for half an hour. I feels complaints coming in from family. No bladdy isolator on any of our taps.
When the then girlfriend (who became my wife) was living in Florida, I was in town when she had a new dishwasher delivered. So I fitted it. Which became a game of chasing leaking joints further and further back down the pipework. Compounded by bloody cockroaches emerging from the underfloor cavity - boy do they grow big 'roaches out there. And made slightly more difficult by language barriers. Body deep into the kitchen cabinets, folded in half tinkering with something and ask for the spanner. A what? Eventually ask for a wrench and get the right tool. I'm bilingual in American and English these days.
One of the best bits of advice my dad told me was "never start a plumbing job when the plumbers merchants are shut".
Brilliant, my mixer tap drips but I just know if I change it I 'll disturb a waste pipe, isolater, drop something down trap. I too have learned never to start work when the shops are shut.
It's either a 5 min job or a day.
It's NEVER a 5 min job.
And don’t suggest taking them to the shop as I’d have to turn the water off for half an hour. I feels complaints coming in from family. No bladdy isolator on any of our taps.
Well, presumably until the first time you have to fit a new cartridge to a tap, then you install one at the same time eh?
This is why I avoid DIY jobs and just spend money on fun tech things instead.
Last project, get some hard flooring down to replace a threadbare carpet in the spareroom. Lift old carpet, discover nasty vinyl floor glued down with something stickier than you can feasibly perceive. Tried, sanding it, heating it (oof the fumes), in the end scraping it very manually in JULY last year, while melting. Ended up paying someone to lay the floor once I had it mostly even, and to put the new skirtings in, they are still unpainted.
Still do to, new kitchen, floor, plaster, remove on of the 2 rads everything needs doing, ugh. Lounge, remove back boiler and get rid of butt ugly fireplace, then new floor, plaster skim, re-decorate and let's be honest, the 16 year old sofa is showing it's age. New bedroom carpet, skirtings and re-decorate, also need a bigger bed and new drawers in there too. I don't even want to think of the room tagged onto the garage as an 'office' that seems to be suffering some water logging subsidence as the soak away appears to not soak away. I love my house, I kind of hate being responsible for it though.
MrsRNP wanted a claw foot cast iron bath. No problem!
Got one direct from the foundry, weighed it, calculated volume/weight of water and decided to double check bathroom floor joists as bath+water+people=lot of weight.
Joists were rotten. No problem!
Drop kitchen ceiling to install 2x steel beams under bath. Boiler was knackered so I ripped that out at same time. No point in a combi boiler going in and having copper pipe so ripped all out. Might as well knock the old loose plaster off to repipe central heating system. If doing that I might as well rewire the entire house. And whilst we're at it might as well do the roof!
There was a stage that you could see clouds from the kitchen as the the kitchen ceiling/bedroom floor and ceiling above were missing and the roof was being done. We were still living in it and both working full time.
Parent in law's then insisted we move in with them......5years later house was finished and we moved back in.
Had 1 bath in the new cast iron bath then sold the house!
Then bought an massive and absolutely knackered former jam factory boiler house mill with bowing walls and huge (rotten) beams. But that's another story.
Plumbing is my nemesis. Dripping tap - I would allocate 2 days and 3 trips to Screwfix (excluding the one where I drive to wrong one because there are now 3 in town and I keep bl**dy ordering stuff from the wrong one.)
Not plumbing related but I can sympathise,
Took my Mk2 Golf GTI off the road for a week to fit AP racing brakes/discs as the standard brakes were never up to the job, needed new hubs and spacers made up so another week off the road to wait for the machine shop to get them made. Started tidying up the bodywork and rust spots underneath which ultimately led to 13 months off the road and £6500 of parts and 100’s/1000s of hours later.
This is why I avoid DIY jobs and just spend money on
fun tech thingsplumbers instead.
Especially as we got back from a week away, and the saniflo in the loft had been leaking all week 😬 fortunately water and not 💩
Especially as we got back from a week away, and the saniflo in the loft had been leaking all week 😬 fortunately water and not 💩
Why have you got a plumbed in saniflo in the loft?
Why have you got a plumbed in saniflo in the loft?
Cos it wouldn't be much use if it wasn't plumbed in? Something to do with the pipe drop. Those plumbers came with the attic conversion package - and suspect wouldn't get work independently as pretty useless it transpired
Why do you never trust a Saniflo loo?
Because it is always full of shit....