How To Fix A Dripping Tap — UK Guide | Elani
A dripping tap is a worn washer or a worn cartridge. Which one depends on your tap. How to tell, how to fix it, and when to replace instead.
September 21, 2026
5 minutes
A dripping tap is a worn washer or a worn cartridge. Which one depends on your tap. How to tell, how to fix it, and when to replace instead.
September 21, 2026
A dripping tap is almost never the tap. It is one small part inside it, and which part depends on how your tap was built — something you can work out in about five seconds by turning the handle.
Left alone, a slow drip wastes a surprising amount of water and, in a hard water area, etches a mark into the basin that does not come out. It is worth ten minutes.
Last updated 21 September 2026 · Elani Journal
Before anything else. Most basins and baths have small isolation valves on the pipes underneath — a slot you turn with a flathead screwdriver. Turn the slot so it sits across the pipe rather than along it, and that tap alone is isolated.
No isolation valves? You need the main stopcock, usually under the kitchen sink or where the supply enters the house.
Then open the tap to drain what is left in the pipe, and put the plug in. Every small part you are about to remove wants to go down that plughole.
This decides everything, and the handle tells you.
The handle turns roughly a quarter turn, stopping firmly — that is a ceramic disc cartridge. Almost all modern mixer taps.
The handle turns several full rotations, getting gradually tighter — that is a traditional rubber washer. Older taps, and most separate hot and cold pillar taps.
Two different parts, two different fixes, and buying the wrong one is the commonest wasted trip to the merchant.
The classic fix, and a cheap one — washers cost pennies.
Prise off the cap on top of the handle (usually marked hot or cold), undo the screw beneath it and lift the handle off. Under that is a brass valve body, which unscrews with a spanner. At its base sits a rubber washer, held by a small nut.
Replace it like for like, and while the valve is out, look at the seat — the brass rim the washer presses against. If it is pitted or scored, a new washer will drip again within months. A reseating tool cuts it flat, and that is the step most people skip.
Ceramic discs do not perish the way rubber does. They fail because grit or limescale gets between the two polished faces and stops them seating.
The job is the same shape — handle off, retaining nut off, old cartridge out, new one in — but the critical detail is that cartridges are not universal. They vary by manufacturer, by model and by year. Take the old one with you rather than guessing from a photograph.
It has its own guide: How To Replace A Tap Cartridge.
Two other leaks get mistaken for a dripping tap.
Water seeping around the base of the spout when you swivel it is not the washer or the cartridge — it is the O-rings on the spout body. They are a separate, even cheaper part.
Water appearing underneath the basin is a supply connection or the waste, not the tap mechanism at all. Dry everything, lay kitchen roll underneath, and run the tap to find where it actually starts.
Much of the UK has hard water, and limescale is why a repair that should last years lasts months. Scale builds on the valve seat and on cartridge faces, and every cycle of the handle grinds it in.
The same mineral load is what marks the finish on the outside of the tap. If you are already fighting that, the two guides worth reading are How To Prevent Limescale Marking Brushed Brass and How To Clean And Care For A Matte Black Tap.
Honestly: when the repair stops holding.
A tap that needs a new cartridge every year has a worn body, not a worn cartridge. A chrome-plated tap that has started to lift or cloud is failing at the finish and no internal part fixes that. And if the cartridge for your model has been discontinued — common on taps over about fifteen years old — the decision has been made for you.
At that point you are choosing a tap rather than fixing one, and the questions change: flow rate, the pressure your system runs at, and whether the finish will survive your water. Bathroom Tap Prices Explained covers what you actually get for the money, and the Sable and Vermeil basin taps are where the Elani range starts.
Almost always the valve seat. The brass rim the washer presses against gets pitted over years, and a new washer cannot seal against a damaged surface. A reseating tool cuts it flat again. If the seat is beyond cutting, the tap body itself is finished.
Turn the handle. A quarter turn that stops firmly is a ceramic disc cartridge, which is what almost every modern mixer tap uses. Several full rotations that get gradually tighter is a traditional rubber washer.
No. You are opening the pressurised part of the tap, and mains pressure will empty a considerable amount of water into the room very quickly. Use the isolation valves under the basin if there are any, or the main stopcock if not.
Enough to be worth fixing. A steady drip runs to thousands of litres a year, and on a water meter that is a real cost — but the more immediate damage in a hard water area is the mineral mark it etches into the basin, which does not polish out.
Yes — faucet is simply the American word for tap, so US repair guides describing a leaky faucet are describing the same job. The parts are named the same way: washers on traditional taps, cartridges on mixers.
Usually not — it is one of the genuinely straightforward jobs, provided you can isolate the water. Call someone if you cannot find a stopcock, if the tap body turns when you apply a spanner, or if the fitting underneath is corroded solid. Forcing a seized tap can crack the basin.
Next: How To Replace A Tap Cartridge, or if you are replacing rather than repairing, Basin Tap Ideas.
