Have You Got a Leaking Tap?

Does this sound familiar?

• A tap that drips even when fully closed
• Water pooling around the base of the tap
• A handle that's stiff, loose or won't turn off
• Brown or limescale staining in the basin
• A whistling or knocking noise when you turn it on

What's usually going on

• A worn washer or ceramic cartridge — the most common cause
• A perished O-ring seal at the spout or base
• Limescale damage to the valve seat (common in London's hard water)
• A worn or cracked tap body that needs replacing

Most dripping taps are a worn washer or cartridge and are fixed quickly. If the tap body itself is worn or corroded, we'll tell you honestly and give you a set price to replace it with like-for-like or an upgrade.

Either way you get a fixed price before we start — no hourly meter running while we work.

Where exactly is it dripping from?

Dry everything with a tissue, wait, and see where the wet appears. Each spot is a different repair:

• From the spout with the tap off — the tap isn't sealing: a perished washer or damaged seat on a traditional tap, a failed ceramic cartridge on a quarter-turn one.
• Around the handle while it runs — the gland or the O-rings on the spindle, not the washer. Often a simpler fix.
• At the base of the tap, or underneath — the seal to the basin or a connection below it. This is the one that matters: that water runs into the cupboard and the floor, and a hidden weep costs far more than a visible drip.
• From a mixer body when you swing the spout — worn spout O-rings, common on kitchen mixers.

What you can safely do yourself

Isolate it. Most basins and baths have small isolation valves on the hot and cold pipes: slot along the pipe is open, slot across is closed. Turning one off with a flat screwdriver is safe and stops a drip until we can attend. You can also unscrew and descale the aerator if the tap spits rather than drips, and check the handle hasn't simply slipped on its spindle.

Changing a washer or cartridge yourself is doable — but in older flats, old isolation valves often fail to seal fully, so know where your stopcock is before you start.

Older taps in Central London flats

In a new-build flat a dripping tap is usually a stock cartridge and a short job. In a mansion block or period conversion it often isn't:

• Obsolete cartridges. Cartridges aren't standardised, and when a brassware range is discontinued its cartridge goes with it. Sometimes an equivalent exists; sometimes the honest answer is a new tap.
• Seized headwork. Decades of hard water weld a tap head into the body, and forcing it can crack the casting. Patience and the right tools are the difference between a repair and a replacement.
• Worn seats. A new washer on a grooved seat drips again within weeks. The seat needs recutting or a seating washer — which is why a tap fixed last month can be dripping again.
• Period and heritage fittings. In listed and high-spec flats these can usually be rewashered or reseated, and that is normally the right call because the fitting is part of the room.

Repair a good-quality tap whose parts exist; replace when parts are genuinely obsolete, the body is cracked, or it's a cheap unit that will fail again. If you replace, match the tap to your water system — a high-flow mixer on a gravity-fed system will disappoint (see low water pressure). And because pipework under a basin in this stock can be anything, including lead (see lead pipe replacement), we look under the basin before quoting, not just at the tap. A photo of the whole fitting, anything written on it and the pipes underneath usually tells us what we're dealing with before we arrive.

Set prices

Set prices shown are typical starting points. You'll always get a fixed quote before any work begins — no hourly surprises.

Why call fixmyproperty.ai

Experienced trades, transparent set prices and a fixed quote before we start — never an open-ended hourly bill. We cover Mayfair, Marylebone, St John's Wood, Bayswater and Paddington, and we understand mansion blocks, porters and managing agents.

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