Why is my bath's hot tap suddenly running as a trickle

7 replies

springer72 · 03/12/2006 19:38

I'm baffled. The hot tap on the bath has been running normally until yesterday. Now, when I turn it on, it runs as a pitiful trickle. What has changed? What would cause this? Will it be horribly expensive to fix this?

OP posts:

WigWamBam · 03/12/2006 19:43

It could be as simple as the washer needing to be replaced - you should be able to unscrew the top of the tap and have a look inside to see if the rubber washer looks worn or chewed up.

jalopy · 03/12/2006 19:46

I believe there is a valve or washer in the main part of the tap that might have got furred up with limescale and is not allowing the water to flow properly. We had this problem. My dh (I'm embarassed to admit) fixed it. He's not here at the mo so I can't ask him how he did it. I think he turned the cold water off and drained the hot water system before dismantling the taps. We needed both doing. Very cheap job!

Linnet · 04/12/2006 00:40

our hot water tap in the kitchen and the bath tap sometimes run at a trickle and it's caused by air in the pipes. We just turn on all the hot water taps and leave them to run for a while and the air bubble goes away, the bath tap sort of splutters and then it works fine after that.

Original poster

springer72 · 04/12/2006 09:44

Thanks for the advice everyone.
Linnet, I'll try your suggestion first as that seems easiest. If that fails I'll move on to the more drastic measures. I'm so reluctant to try anything that involves taking bits of plumbing apart; I did this in our old house and and accidentally shattered a pipe and it cost a small fortune to sort it all out.
I'll let you know how I get on.

OP posts:

Original poster

springer72 · 04/12/2006 14:28

I haven't solved the problem yet, but I'm pretty sure now that it is the hot water supply to the tap that is the problem, rather than the tap itself. It is a mixer tap and the cold is running fine, but the hot isn't. The hot water won't come out of the shower either, but the cold will.
I tried running all the hot taps in the house for a while, but that hasn't helped. Perhaps I didn't do it for long enough?
The other hot water taps in the house are fine - the other upstairs bathroom (next to this bathroom so possibly shares pipes?) and kitchen and loo downstairs.

I've got a DIY book and that suggests putting a hose between the dodgy tap and the kitchen cold tap, turning on the cold water, and blasting any air bubbles out that way. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Knowing my luck the hose wold come off and I'd have a flooded kitchen.

Sorry, boring myelf now., let alone anyone else.....

OP posts:

mrsvern · 05/12/2006 19:51

hi
Our kitchen tap did this and I had to get a plumber out in the end as I tried everything. There is a pin or something (possibly called a spiggot - it was a few years ago) in the tap and ours decided to tighten rather than loosen and needed replacing.

Original poster

springer72 · 05/12/2006 21:05

Thanks Mrsvern. It may come to that. I haven't investigated any further today (I was hoping it would magically fix itself). I've caught ds's bug and am feeling like death warmed up, so decided it was safer to walk away.

Tempted to leave it for dh to sort out at the weekend, but he's even more useless at these things than me.

OP posts:

Flip