Jim'll Fix It! Eastbourne Handyman Extraordinaire!
Now including Computer Help
Restorative carpentry Sash Windows Wooden Doors repair and renovation, Shelving and Flat pack installed, Plumbing, Electrical, Plastering, Painting and decorating, DIY rescues!Computer help given. Software problems solved! Deleted files recovered, lost photos music and documents found, Personal and business websites set up. Home and business networks setup and administered, Computer lessons given for newbies. Covering Eastbourne Bexhill Hailsham
Sunday, 25 February 2007
Ceramic Tap Washers
I was reading Bruce Greig's excellent 0800Handyman Blog and came across a very interesting post (it was interesting to me because I agree wholeheartedly!). For those too idle to click the link "under blogs I like", I reproduce it here.
21 February 2007
Ceramic tap valves
Seamus, our General Manager, was talking to me yesterday about the problems we have fixing ceramic tap valves. Most modern taps use ceramic quarter-turn valves instead of rubber washers. Ceramic quarter-turn valves last much longer than rubber washers, and the taps are much more pleasant to use as you only have to twist the handle a quarter turn to get full flow, rather than screwing it around and around like an old-fashioned tap.But when a ceramic valve tap plays up, it is a mission to fix. The quickest (and therefore cheapest for the customer) solution is to replace the valve. But few valves are the same, so you have to identify and supply a matching valve. If you know the manufacturer's name, and even better the tap name or model number, it is easy. But how many people know who made their taps? Not many.Plumbers merchants seem to hold only the slimmest range of replacement valves, and in our experience we can only source a matching valve from someone's stock in about 50% of jobs. How do we deal with the other 50%? Our handyman zaps a photo over to the office, and Seamus uses Google Image search to find one that looks to have the right parameters and we order a few in.So we can usually do it, but I have to say it is never very convenient for the customer, often requiring two separate visits (just to fix a tap!). A rubber washer tap would rarely take more than half-an-hour to fix, if that. But it can easily cost £100 to source and replace a ceramic tap valve, and you can buy a very nice brand new quarter-turn tap for that. Of course a specialist plumber with a van full of spares might be able to solve this problem more easily, if they keep a large stock of different tap valves in their van. But if plumbers merchants don't even keep a wide range, seems unlikely that a plumber would. I would be interested to know.Our aim is to identify a set of valves which will cover 100% of replacements. For a while Seamus had thought that three particular ceramic valves would cover all eventualities, but it had just been lucky that those three worked in a long run of tap-fixing-jobs. We soon found a whole load of taps for which our magic range of three valves didn't work. He now has a range of 10 different valves which, since a renewed effort to solve this problem, have worked in all cases.Still, having every handyman carry even just 10 different valves around is not very efficient. Each handyman probably only does one tap job every couple of weeks (I'm guessing here, haven't checked the stats), so it would take at least 6 months to turn over that stock of 10 valves, not very efficient from a stock-holding point of view.(Astute readers will be thinking, why replace the valve at all? Why not just take it apart and service it, that should get it working again. Correct. But that also takes a lot of time, and if after cleaning it up (including leaving to soak in a descalant) it still doesn't work you've wasted a whole load of the customer's time. Our view is that it is better to replace to be on the safe side.)
Posted by Bruce Greig at 16:46
21 February 2007
Ceramic tap valves
Seamus, our General Manager, was talking to me yesterday about the problems we have fixing ceramic tap valves. Most modern taps use ceramic quarter-turn valves instead of rubber washers. Ceramic quarter-turn valves last much longer than rubber washers, and the taps are much more pleasant to use as you only have to twist the handle a quarter turn to get full flow, rather than screwing it around and around like an old-fashioned tap.But when a ceramic valve tap plays up, it is a mission to fix. The quickest (and therefore cheapest for the customer) solution is to replace the valve. But few valves are the same, so you have to identify and supply a matching valve. If you know the manufacturer's name, and even better the tap name or model number, it is easy. But how many people know who made their taps? Not many.Plumbers merchants seem to hold only the slimmest range of replacement valves, and in our experience we can only source a matching valve from someone's stock in about 50% of jobs. How do we deal with the other 50%? Our handyman zaps a photo over to the office, and Seamus uses Google Image search to find one that looks to have the right parameters and we order a few in.So we can usually do it, but I have to say it is never very convenient for the customer, often requiring two separate visits (just to fix a tap!). A rubber washer tap would rarely take more than half-an-hour to fix, if that. But it can easily cost £100 to source and replace a ceramic tap valve, and you can buy a very nice brand new quarter-turn tap for that. Of course a specialist plumber with a van full of spares might be able to solve this problem more easily, if they keep a large stock of different tap valves in their van. But if plumbers merchants don't even keep a wide range, seems unlikely that a plumber would. I would be interested to know.Our aim is to identify a set of valves which will cover 100% of replacements. For a while Seamus had thought that three particular ceramic valves would cover all eventualities, but it had just been lucky that those three worked in a long run of tap-fixing-jobs. We soon found a whole load of taps for which our magic range of three valves didn't work. He now has a range of 10 different valves which, since a renewed effort to solve this problem, have worked in all cases.Still, having every handyman carry even just 10 different valves around is not very efficient. Each handyman probably only does one tap job every couple of weeks (I'm guessing here, haven't checked the stats), so it would take at least 6 months to turn over that stock of 10 valves, not very efficient from a stock-holding point of view.(Astute readers will be thinking, why replace the valve at all? Why not just take it apart and service it, that should get it working again. Correct. But that also takes a lot of time, and if after cleaning it up (including leaving to soak in a descalant) it still doesn't work you've wasted a whole load of the customer's time. Our view is that it is better to replace to be on the safe side.)
Posted by Bruce Greig at 16:46
Labels: Plumbing
Archives
December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 June 2009 November 2009 January 2010 February 2010
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]