A dripping tap is the most ignorable fault in a flat. It damages nothing today, it costs almost nothing today, and it is very easy to close the door on. It is also, in Central London stock, one of the jobs most likely to go sideways — not because the repair is hard, but because of what the tap turns out to be and what is behind it.
This page is about doing it properly: working out what is dripping and why, what you can safely do yourself, and why a fifteen-minute job in a modern flat can be a genuinely awkward one in a mansion block with original fittings.
Where is it actually dripping from?
Three different faults, three different repairs. Look before you decide.
From the spout, when the tap is off. The tap is not sealing. On a traditional tap that means a perished washer or a damaged seat. On a modern quarter-turn tap it means a failed ceramic disc cartridge. This is the classic drip.
From around the handle or the base of the handle when the tap is running. That is the gland or the O-rings on the spindle, not the washer. Different part, and often a simpler fix.
From the base of the tap where it meets the basin or bath, or from underneath. That is not the tap sealing at all — it is the tap's seal to the surface, or a connection under it. This is the one that matters, because that water goes under the basin, into the cupboard, and eventually into the floor. A drip you can see is annoying. A weep underneath is the one that gets expensive.
From the mixer body when you swing the spout. Worn O-rings in the spout seal. Common on kitchen mixers.
Two minutes with a torch and a dry piece of tissue will tell you which of these you have. Dry everything, wait, and see where the wet appears.
Why it is worth doing
Three honest reasons, and the third is the real one.
Water is metered in many flats, and a drip runs continuously. It is not dramatic, but it is money leaving with no benefit.
Second, a drip damages the fitting. Water running constantly across a seat wears a groove in it, and hard water — which is what Central London has — leaves scale that makes the wear worse. A tap that could have been repaired with a washer in January can need replacing by the autumn, and if the tap is original or discontinued, that is a much bigger conversation.
Third, staining. A slow hot drip onto an old basin or an enamelled bath leaves a mark that does not come off. Onto a stone or marble surface — which in this stock is common — it can etch. Replacing a tap costs money. Replacing a marble basin surround because a tap dripped onto it for two years costs a great deal more.
What you can safely do yourself
Isolate it. Under most basins and baths there are small isolation valves on the hot and cold tails: a chrome fitting with a slot for a flat-blade screwdriver. Slot along the pipe is open, slot across is closed. Turning one off is safe and reversible, and it stops a drip immediately if you need to leave it until someone can attend.
Descale the aerator. If the tap is spitting or running oddly rather than dripping, unscrew the mesh at the end of the spout, soak it in descaler, refit. That is a homeowner job.
Check it is not just a loose handle. Sometimes what looks like a failure is a handle that has slipped on the spindle and is not fully closing.
Beyond that, changing a washer or a cartridge is entirely doable for a competent person, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But there are two traps in this stock, and they are worth knowing before you start. First, the isolation valve may not work — old valves seize or fail to seal fully, and you find out only when you have the tap in pieces and water is arriving. Always test the valve properly, and know where your stopcock is before you begin. Second, the tap may not come apart the way the internet says. Which brings us to the actual problem.
The Central London complication: what the tap is
In a new-build flat around Paddington Basin, a dripping tap is a cartridge, the cartridge is available, and the job is short.
In a 1930s mansion block flat in Maida Vale that was refitted in 1998 with a mid-range brassware range that no longer exists, it is not. Here is what actually goes wrong.
Obsolete cartridges. Ceramic cartridges are not standardised. Each manufacturer has its own, and when a range is discontinued the cartridge follows it. A perfectly good tap that looks like it should take a common part takes a part nobody makes. Sometimes an equivalent can be found; sometimes it genuinely cannot, and the honest answer is a new tap.
Seized headwork. Fifty years of hard water welds a tap head into the body. Forcing it can crack the casting — and on an original or period fitting, that is the end of it. Patience, penetrating oil and heat where appropriate are the difference between a repair and a replacement. This is the single most common way a DIY tap job turns into a plumbing bill.
Worn seats. On old taps the brass seat the washer closes onto gets grooved. A new washer on a damaged seat drips again within weeks. The seat needs recutting or a seating washer fitting. This is why the tap you fixed last month is dripping again — the washer was never the whole problem.
Original and period fittings. In listed and high-spec properties around Mayfair and Marylebone, the brassware is frequently either genuinely old or a heritage-pattern fitting chosen deliberately. These can usually be repaired — rewashered, reseated, sometimes remanufactured internally — and that is very often the right answer, because the fitting is part of the room. It is not a job to attack with a pair of pliers.
Access. The nuts holding a basin tap sit above the basin, in a space designed by nobody, and in a boxed-in vanity unit in a small period bathroom you may not be able to get a hand in, let alone a spanner. Half the difficulty in this job is geometry.
Repair or replace?
The honest test is a short one.
Repair if: the tap is good quality, the parts exist, the body is sound, and the fitting suits the room. A decent tap will outlast several cartridges, and replacing a good tap because a small internal part failed is waste.
Repair if it is original or specified: in a period or listed interior, matching a tap is often impossible and reproducing a set is expensive. Repair first, every time.
Replace if: the parts are genuinely obsolete, the body is cracked or the plating has gone, the tap is a cheap unit that will fail again, or you are replacing one of a pair and the other is on the same clock.
Replace with thought if the system matters: this is the trap. A tap is not just a tap — it has to suit your water system. Fitting a high-flow mixer to a gravity-fed system with a tank a couple of metres above will disappoint, and no amount of quality in the fitting will fix it. Before you choose brassware, know what system you have; our guide to low water pressure in a London flat explains how to establish that.
The bigger question a drip sometimes asks
Occasionally a dripping tap is not a tap problem. If several taps in the flat are dripping or stiff at once, that is usually age — the whole set is at the end of its life. If a tap started dripping right after work was done elsewhere, it may be that debris from disturbed pipework has got into the seat, which is common after a system has been drained and refilled.
And if changing the tap means disturbing pipework that turns out to be old, that is worth knowing before you start rather than after. In this stock, the pipe under a basin can be anything, including lead — see our guide to lead pipe replacement in London. It is why we look under the basin before quoting, not just at the tap.
If the tap is going anyway and the basin is chipped and the tiling behind it is failing, that is the point to ask honestly whether you are repairing a tap or postponing a bathroom refurbishment. Sometimes the drip is genuinely the only problem. Sometimes it is the visible edge of a room that has had enough. We will tell you which we think it is, and we will not push you towards the bigger job if the small one is right.
Consent and the block
Changing a tap like for like is a repair and does not normally trouble anybody. It is worth noting the general position anyway, because people ask: most leases require freeholder or managing-agent consent for alterations, and altering waste or soil runs, or moving sanitaryware, typically counts. Swapping a tap does not. If the job grows into moving the basin, check your lease first. In a listed building, works affecting the special character can require listed building consent — again, a tap swap is not that, but a re-plan of the room might be.
Practical point instead: blocks with porters often have contractor booking and set working hours. For a tap it hardly matters, but it is worth knowing your building's rules if we are coming in.
How we handle it
Send a photo of the tap — the whole fitting, including the base and, if you can, whatever is written on it — and a photo of the pipework underneath. That usually tells us whether we are looking at a cartridge we can bring, headwork we will need to free, or a fitting that has been out of production for twenty years. We would rather know before we arrive than stand in your bathroom finding out.
Our plumbing work starts from £80, with a fixed price agreed before we start, and if a tap turns out not to be repairable we will tell you what your options are rather than fit whatever is on the van. If you have several small jobs — a drip here, a slow waste there, a seal that has gone — it is worth doing them in one visit; that is what our maintenance service is built around, particularly for landlords and managing agents with several flats.
We cover W1, W2, NW8 and W9. Reach a plumber in Mayfair, Maida Vale or the rest of Central London through the quote form.