Boom boom.
Tap washers: I'm learning to love them.
At the moment I'm in the process of changing the tap washers in our house. We've had a few taps that required a bit more than just gentle persuasion (like the hot tap in the shower which just about needed to be screwed through the wall), and so I thought it was about time we did the washers and any reseating of the taps that needed to happen.
Being a rental house, I don't expect anyone has redone the washers since the house was built 9 years ago. So there's no time like the present to spend some money on them. And heck - what's the worst I can do? Flood the house, destroying the carpet and underlay and some irreplaceable pieces of antique furniture? There's nothing to lose.
The screw-down tap mechanism is such a simple but brilliant design. It's been around in one form or another since 1845 (first manufactured by Guest and Chrimes of Rotherham) - back in the day when they really knew how to make cool newspaper ads.
And I'm guessing it'll be around for a while yet. Despite the onset of the sink mixer, and the rise and rise of ceramic taps, there are still a heck-of-a-lot of olde-style neoprene washers out there.
The job of changing them is pretty easy (I'm not so sure about the task of reseating as my first attempt removed a scary amount of brass - but I learned from it). It's one of those tasks that every man needs to attempt at least once in his life (like changing a tyre in a suit, pulling apart a motorbike engine on the dining room table, or filling a waterbed (my score so far: 0/3)).
And the added bonus: every time you use the bathroom taps, you can proudly say to yourself, "This tap doesn't leak quite as badly as it used to because I had a go at it." Can you feel the satisfaction?
So go on fellas (and chickas) - bust out the spanners, buy some tap washers, and brace yourselves for an afternoon of family excitement. (And double-check the wording on your insurance policy too.)
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