Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Bath Taps

It seems to me that bathroom fittings have gone insane…bear with me.

My son has a rather expensive (£1500) floor mounted “tub filler” made by a company called Crosswater. A few weeks back, water started dripping through the ceiling below the bathroom. The tap is connected to the supply pipes beneath the tiled bathroom floor so there’s no way of isolating it. I turned off all the water and dismantled the tap. There are no less than 21 low profile O rings in this tap plus one Chinese cartridge and one shuttle valve and four push fit internal pipe connections. The O rings are non standard and the manufacturer doesn’t stock any and can’t tell you any technical information on them (so just another fake manufacturer supplying Chinese goods) but bless them, they can sell you a replacement Chinese plastic cartridge.

Don’t get me started on built in toilet cisterns.

Where in the system is the leak? One joint? Multiple joints? Cartridge?
If the O-rings are non standard you can make your own. Kits are available ( we used them in our factory).
You buy a length of correct diameter material, cut it to length and glue the ends together. Bingo....a new O-ring. I made a couple last year for a hose fitting. There were none left in my box of O-rings so ordered material ( pay per metre) and made a couple. Have a look on you tube for “how to” vids.
Re the no isolator valve, maybe get a plumber in to fit one. Trace the feed back to somewhere you can fit it, even cutting a hole for access and repairing/ fit a panel.

Thanks Sospan, I fixed it using an O ring splicing kit. I replaced them all while dismantled as the tap was 7 years old. More of a comment on the insane design where any one of 21 O rings and other internal devices can send water down the column and through the ceiling below. Whatever happened to the old top washer assembly.

Personally I hate this “built in” craze in bathrooms, sometimes not so bad if retrofitted and done with thought, but if you want a real challenge, try fixing any built in tap or cistern in a new house where access is often non existent and even if you can get two fingers in there it’s like a nail gun version of an iron maiden inside.

Totally agree, another case of pointless fashion over function, our neighbours have just had weeks of work to bling-up the bathroom everything just lobbed in a skip...apparently all the fittings that are usually chrome will be satin black (yuk) and I wonder how long that finish will last

Satin black taps etc reminds me of the late 70's fashion for dark coloured bathroom fittings. Our first house (new in 1979) had a bathroom in "Sorrento Blue" - very dark blue. It looked clean on about three occasions - in spite of the effort put in by both of us.

I blame the builders - Barrat Homes in that instance.

No 1 Daughter and her family have a large house in Cambridge area about 20 years old now and they discovered damp in a couple of downstairs rooms, the builders have been round and they need four and a half weeks worth of work done involving skips commencing Tuesday !

The leakage was traced to their Master bedroom bathroom which has one of those Jacuzzi baths in so has proved an expensive experiment, tis a good job they have another six bedrooms with only two children rattling around their drum

I'm just glad we live 350 miles away and didn't have to pass a judgement.

One house we were in had a bathroom suite in that overpowering deep plum/maroon colour ... the rest of the bathroom was hot pink!! ... when it was a bit humid after a bath it was just like being Jonah during the 'whale incident' !! 🙂

K

The bathroom here when we moved in was pink with maroon accessories and beige tiles.

The carpet, yes, carpet, was maroon shagpile.

I mean, carpet in a bathroom is not exactly practical, but shagpile? Really?