Stop tap not working

[Paulg31]

Hi,

So today I did a bit of plumbing fitting a an outside tap. The tap was feed from some pipework in the garage for the boiler. Isolating the water was easy as there was an isolation value just before where I cut the pipe.

However I did check the main stop tap under the sink in the kitchen and it doesn't seem to work. It turns however when it's in the fully closed position it only seems to reduce the flow a little. First time I've tried it as I've only owned the house a couple of months.

Whist I don't mind doing the odd bit of plumbing is rather not do this. If I make a mess of it the water for the whole house that I'd have to leave switched off.

I'm guessing the water would need switching off in the road then the value replacing. What sort of cost would I be looking at for this, it's in Warwickshire? Access is pretty good in the cupboard to the stop tap and I'd check before that the stop tap in the road wasn't full of soil.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Burnerman]

The chances are Paul, is that the stopcock has lost it's rubber washer.....the supply needs to be turned off in the road (you can buy the extended key for this - we call it a Toby ) and then the barrel of the stopcock needs to be unscrewed.
Not a huge job, but if you contract it out, make the Toby nice and clear. 1 hour maybe?
John

 

[Burnerman]

The chances are Paul, is that the stopcock has lost it's rubber washer.....the supply needs to be turned off in the road (you can buy the extended key for this - we call it a Toby ) and then the barrel of the stopcock needs to be unscrewed.
Not a huge job, but if you contract it out, make the Toby nice and clear. 1 hour maybe?
John

 

[Paulg31]

Hi all,

Further to this post I never did get round to further looking at the stop tap but it is something I want to get sorted before I have a problem where I might need to use it. I tried it again last night and with the kitchen tap on there wasn't really any different in flow with the stop tap turned from one extreme to the other.

I had a look at the stop tap at the end of the drive, it's full of soil so I'll need to clear that out. So replacing the washer, where would I get a replacement washer from? Would it just be a 15 mm stop cock washer I'd ask for?

I've attached a couple of photos of the stop cock.



Thanks,
Paul