21 October 2023

Plumbing sorted the Margot way

I had a leaking tap and felt I needed to do something about it. I don’t like wasting drinking water! So the next Saturday I accepted the onerous task.

The first step was closing the stopcock. That was not trivial! It was both barely reachable, and quite seized up. A bad combination. And someone had suggested I may just cut a hole in the kitchen cabinet next to it. A good idea! So I emptied it out, took the shelf out, and set to work. It needed to be a sizeable hole! I wanted to lubricate the stopcock, but then you need a hole that is big enough to let your hand holding lubricant through, plus extra space to see what you’re doing. 

When that was done I tried to close the stopcock. It wasn’t an unadulterated success! There was still some water coming out of the tap. But I figured the water pressure was now so low I could chance it.

Stopcock exposed


I took the tap apart, and given that I saw nothing I could improve on, just reassembled it again, but a bit tighter. That worked; the leaking had stopped. But I knew that using it would probably restart that. So the next step was: make a ‘not in use’ sign. And I found a convenient piece of slate roof tile that would do the job nicely. I engraved the needed message, and fixed it to the tap. Job done! 

Done! 


In the long run I will have to get an actual plumber look at all this. But for now I’m sorted! 


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