Be Excellent To Each Other

As daft as it sounds we have no cold water. I just went to run a bath after a really bad day and nearly burned my skin off. The tap is turning but nothing is coming out. However, three feet away the sink has a perfectly find cold water tap and the toilet is filling up fine.

Can a tap get stuck but still turn? It makes no sense at all.

Sounds to me like the tap is spinning on its thread rather than actually turning it.

I'm no expert but I'd say you need a new tap... Or a part of a tap at least.

Bah. It's a great lump of a mixer unit too

Fuck mixer taps in the front bum, this is going cost a fortune

Isn't this dead cheap? Just take the top of the tap off in the same way that you would to fix a washer.

Entire new mixers with 2 separate taps are about 20 quid in B&Q so it's not the end of the world.

Anyway, carefully take the tap off and then use pliers to free up the valve stem. It's probably jammed or just been turned off too hard and stripped the plastic that is supposed to grip it.
So you can probably just replace the knob, or at worst the valve insert (need to drain the water off for that one).

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Pretty much the same thing happened to ours a few months back. The washer in the tap was fucked (meaning getting cold water out of it required a delicate operation involving pliers and screwdrivers). Fixed it with this rather than replacing the whole mixer unit, as it seemed easier and cheaper.

You can download one from the internet to "try" for nothing.

Have you tried using Flash ing the bios

Kalmar it's not stripped plastic sadly. It's behaving perfectly normal only no water is coming out. Definitely the valvey bit methinks.

Thankfully today Mum's (and mine's) friends are coming. A couple mum's age but I grew up with their sons. The dude is a dab hand and has a car ! so hopefully we can get it sorted between us

Hmm. Well I took the tap off last night (well the plastic handle) and there are brassy bits. You never know, that link might be just the ticket !

Probably the easiest way to work out what's wrong is to compare what happens when you turn the hot tap on with what happens (or doesn't) when you turn the cold tap on.

There's no cold water out of it at all mate tbh. Plenty of hot, and our hot water really is amazingly hot, but no cold.

I did notice that the tap is 'full locking' a bit early. I also realised that the water has steadily gotten hotter over the past week. Now I thought it was due to the heating now being off but I guess the valve was slowly getting itself stuck.

It took two and a half hours last night for the bath full of hot water to cool enough to get into it. I didn't get into bed until 2am so my ass is dragging on the ground thismorning (as they say in Yankland)

I'm 99.9% confident your linky there will solve the problem. I'll get some pics in a minute but yeah, looks like you're bang on the money there. Now all I gots to do is find the stopcock

My bathroom sink tap did the same thing actually.

The bit that holds the washer goes up and down on a thread as you turn the tap. Mine had popped right off the end of the thread, meaning it jammed closed (probably the washer got too thin, allowing this).

I temporarily fixed it by threading it back on, but when it did it again I replaced the insert like Nik linked to. You'll probably need to take the old one to the shop to get the exact match.

Will do yeah. I had a look at the sink and the taps top and bottom (plastic and brassy bits) are identical. So, I'm going to replace the lot tbh. Whilst I'm there I have to sort the bog seat as it's loose and I'm going to fit a pine bath panel as ours is broken to shit plastic crap.

I figure £80 all in is substantially cheaper than fitting a new bathroom and with those parts serviced it should keep him running for another five years or so

We were going to get a new one fitted but we're desperate to out the rank red carpets downstairs.

Hmm.

I just measured the tap thread as best I could (the brass bit that needs replacing) and it measures an inch I'm sure.

Well those revivers only come in 1/2 inch or 3/4. This could be bad

Stop being such a wet blanket.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Replacement-Tap-V ... 2559870f86

(Anyway it will be 3/4, you may be looking at a sleeve that's part of the tap construction - just take out the inner bit)

These chaps sympathise.

No toilet paper either? Sair yin.

Try flushing the bios.

Stopcock is jammed. I can turn every single other one, and the one I'm sure is the right one won't move even with mole grips and some force.

Great

Top tip: always turn the stopcock closed half a turn rather than leaving it hard open, where it will sieze up.

Faucet. I mean, force it.

I've tried forcing it. It rocks backward and forward a tiny bit but even with large mole grips on will not move. So I got into the loft but there's no secondary.

Hilariously the entire cunting fucking house has a stop tap for every sink tap and toilet but the bathroom has fuck all on any.

I really don't know what else to do. And we have guests arriving in about 10 mins to an hour.

The bathroom cold water is coming from the header tank. This has a ball float valve coming from the mains. Tie that up with a piece of string so that it doesn't fill the tank when you drain it.

Simples.

To be honest I changed the insert on mine without draining it, the pressure wasn't too high (just one floor in my house) so I just ignored the water skooshing out for a moment until I put the new valve in.

Also, unless your guests will be demanding to bathe, I don't see what the problem is. Tell them to take a shower instead.

When the bombs drop I'm going to live with Kalmar. He knows how to Do Stuff. I shall complement his abilities with my knowledge of the Warhammer 40k universe and death metal.

The pressure seems to be too high to be coming from the header tank.

TBH I think I'm just going to cover the floor in towells and do it the balls out method.

That is possible if your house is too new and has an unvented system (which you can check - if it doesn't have a large-ish header tank in the loft, it's unvented).

If that is the case I would definitely recommend turning the stopcock off first - put some muscle into it.

@ Dimrill

Sorted. I'll get some pics tomorrow but I'm exhausted but happy

Repairing the plumbing is like making love to a beautiful woman.

Only if you're with a squirter

Oh the satisfaction? unmatched.

Quick round up. Turns out the broken stop cock was the one needed. However, we simply turned off two others. One of which fed the cold water tank and the other was the hot water side.

Went off to Screwfix. They were open but stocked none of the tap parts. None of the kits, not even complete tap sets the gits.

On to Wickes who had the same kits at double the price. However it was still only £42 for four lever style taps with the new thingers on the bottom side, which if you deduct the cost of a plumber we're still about two thousand pounds up.

I was so happy I got us a new pine side panel.

Came back, fitted them all (was a breeze with my friend here (mum's age) and also fitted the new panel (antique pine). Took apart the button for the shower and cleaned all the limescale out of it (lots) and put him all back together. And the water flow has literally tripled.

So yeah, absolutely chuffed to bits and only spent £90 total on what feels like a new bathroom

Heh, good on ya JC