Taps

Older taps work on a rubber washer pressed onto a seat, and you turn the handle several times from off to full on. When they drip, it’s normally the washer. Most newer taps use ceramic discs and go from off to on in a quarter or half turn. When those drip, the cartridge usually needs replacing. Bristol’s hard water speeds up wear on both, and limescale on the aerator is behind a lot of weak or spluttering flow.

• Dripping taps: washers, cartridges and valve seats
• Stiff or loose handles
• Leaks from the base of the tap or the connections underneath
• New kitchen, basin and bath taps fitted
• Outside garden taps installed or repaired

Toilets

• Constantly running or refilling: usually a worn flush valve seal or a faulty fill valve
• Weak or partial flush: limescale, a tired flush mechanism, or the water level set too low
• Water around the base: a failed pan connector or seal, or a cracked pan
• Slow-filling cistern: limescale or grit in the fill valve
• Blocked toilet: usually wipes or too much paper, sometimes further down the drain

Most toilets have an isolation valve on the pipe feeding the cistern. A quarter-turn with a flat-head screwdriver shuts off that toilet without turning off the whole house, which is worth doing if a cistern is overflowing.

Concealed cisterns

Many newer bathrooms hide the cistern behind a panel, with just the flush plate showing. The parts inside are much the same, and there’s usually access through the flush plate opening. If yours was boxed in with no access, mention it when you call.