"Easy Fit"

Kitchen Tap
Nightmare

Went out to a job this morning to look at a dripping kitchen tap - a very common issue in this part of the world because of our hard water. On examination, we could see it was dripping quite a bit on the hot side. After isolating the water supply, I thought I'd see if I could repair it by removing the cartridge and replacing the washer. Sometimes you get lucky with a quarter-turn tap and a new washer gives you a bit more life.

Unfortunately, what happened was we couldn't get the cartridge out of the main body of the tap. This was with one of us holding the tap steady and the other on the cartridge, giving it everything we could. Even though I do have some cartridges on the van, we couldn't get this one out to make a repair.

The Simple Solution

So I explained the situation to the customer and showed her a tap I had on the van that we could install for £50. She could keep it for the new kitchen they're planning, reinstall it on the new sink, or get rid of it when they upgrade in a couple of months. She was happy with that.

So Harry (my apprentice) and I went about removing the existing tap. Now, what I'd spotted was this was an "Easy Fit" tap - the type where you don't have to fit the components on the underside to the top separately.

The Reality of "Easy Fit"

They might be easy to fit initially, but they're certainly not easy to remove. It took two of us, and luckily there was access from both sides because one had to be above and one below to unwind the fixing bolt. The bolt was seriously tight - absolutely solid, wouldn't budge.

After a lot of effort, I was about to get the multi-tool out to cut the plastic component so we could get it off from the other side when we realized we could use an Allen key bit in my ratchet. With a lot of force and one of us gripping the underside of the tap, we finally managed to get it unwound.

What This Means for You

I suppose what I'm trying to say is they might be easy to install when you've got good access, but in situations like Belfast sinks where it's very difficult to get behind, or where you've got a very deep bowl sink and limited access, you need to be aware of the potential problems.

All that time spent engineering these "easy fit" taps, and they didn't think about the plumber when it comes time to remove them. Maybe we just had a bad one - it was covered in scale and debris, which was horrendous. But it's something to consider.

Your Experience?

What's your experience with easy-fit taps? Have you had similar removal nightmares, or do you have any tips for dealing with seized fittings?

Would be good to hear from other trades about their experiences with different tap types and any tricks for stubborn removals.