Taps - The conclusion?

So apparently the taps weren't quite done!

Olives.  Not avocados, as I have repeatedly called them today!

These tricky little blighters turned out to be the problem!  Despite stating confidently, last night, that the job was finished, it turned out that they were still leaking every so slightly.

So today, after getting a couple of hours sleep following my night shift, I decided to attack the problem and get it sorted, hopefully once and for all.  Stripping the pipes down again was a lot easier today having had the experience from yesterday.  I managed to cut the offending olives off fairly easily and replace them.  Add some new nuts to the compression joint and I hoped we were ready to go.

Fingers crossed.  Turn the water back on again.....Success!  No leaking anymore.  Another 20 minutes saw me fit the new plug-plunger thingy (edit: apparently called Pop-Up Waste) and we now have a functioning sink once more.

Do I dare attack the bath tomorrow and attempt to change those taps too?  I'm not sure...

Taps - Who knew they could be so awkward!

Our latest foray in to the world of home improvement has led us down the path of tap replacement.

This wasn't so much a choice, as a decision made for us.  Two nights ago, the taps in the bathroom decided that they had served their time and that they were no longer required to hold the water back.  So, on returning home, we found the taps running and impossible to turn off without isolating the water pipes leading to the taps.

This has meant that the last two days have been spent trying to buy/change the taps.  I have absolutely no plumbing experience, which will become quite evident later!

We decided on some nice, clean-cut taps from Screwfix, thinking that we would replace both the sink and bath taps so that everything matched.

Yesterday was mostly spent removing the old tap...

 

...and figuring out what I needed to do to install the new one...

...which was completed today...(ish!).

Unfortunately, my wonderful plumbing skills ended just shy of a proper job.  Having connected everything up correctly (I thought), I turned on the water supply again and, to my joy, watched water leaking from the compression joint in the pipe!  Time had run out though, so I had to isolate the water, get changed, have dinner and run off to work, thinking that I could return to the job tomorrow.

WRONG!

As if destined by some annoying little quirk of fate (the one that states "as soon as you can't do anything about the problem, that's when it'll rear it's ugly little head"), I got the phone call from home almost as soon as I got to work.  "There's water dripping through the ceiling in the kitchen".... Great!.

Annoyed, stressed and stuck at work, the job fell to the lady of the house to try and fix it.  Which she did with apparent ease, with the help of our friend, Daz (Cheers dude!). Apparently, it was a simple case of tightening the compression joint.  Makes me wonder how I managed to make the job last for most of the day!  Anyway, either which way, I think we now have a working, non-leaking and presentable sink tap.

Not bad for a days work.  At this rate, the house might be finished before I retire (in 3 decades time!).