Leaderboard

Imagine what the 'other side' of a fitted kitchen might look like, in a 60 year old house. The dark unpainted, unfinished walls. Dirty floors. Cobwebs and unswept debris .... A water supply pipe sticks out the floor, practically untouched since the house was built. Attached to the pipe is an old junction with similarly aged pipework laid going toward a sink in that room, and also going upward toward a bathroom. Imagine the stopcocks there so old, one no longer functions, so a cowboy plumber doesn't replace it, he just puts another one on the same route. And the second one leaks. Imagine this behind the façade of a kitchen unit in the corner of the room, which hides the dirt and history of the house. Yesterday I got asked about changing a tap washer on a monobloc kitchen tap. Not a problem as long as I can find the isolation valves to stop the water. I hunted around and found a cut-out for a stop cock. I could feel the handle, so I turned it. As "luck" would have it, it turned off mains water for another part of the house. (A bit novel.) I found the isolation valves eventually, with their levers missing. Someone had used washing machine valves, and removed the levers. Duh! While staring at the underneath of the sink having noticed the limescale trail from what must be a leaking 'O' ring around the base of the taps, I could hear a drip ...... drip ....... drip coming from the other side of the cupboard I had my head inside. I had another look at the valve I'd just tightened, and couldn't see enough of it to draw a conclusion. Pulling out the lower decorative façade of the unit, I could see drips of water hitting the floor. Obviously I had disturbed something and a leak was the result. With no tools about me, I had to make do with a tray for the water and a promise of returning. On the journey home, I had visions of having to pull out the entire kitchen to get at the leaking valve.... Later that night, I discovered the likely cause, and thankfully easy/cheap fix. Leaking glands on older style stopcocks are common. Back today, I was tooled up. I had my multi-cutter to remove a panel, but found the rear of the cupboard was only held with panel pins. I damaged the panel removing it, but it gave me good access. The repair was quick, and at the time of writing, was still working. I can't express how fraught my evening was yesterday. Nor how grateful I am to the You Tube contributors. I'll sleep a lot better tonight. Next, the tap washers .... As the taps are in such poor shape and there's a leak underneath them, it makes sense to replace them as they have to be uninstalled anyway to fix the leak. £40 for replacements and hopefully another 10 years of trouble free use. Not sure this job's for me though ... The supply pipe route is ridiculous. Unimaginably poor. Yet would have been so easy to route logically and allow simple/easy maintenance. Nope, too sensible for someone. Apparently the installer moved away. Wonder why?