On 19 July, 13:40, J. Tailor wrote:
Hello,

Here's a picture of a bathroom sink tap. I think it's by Pegler.

http://i31.tiny-pic.com/10i9njt.jpg
(Delete the hyphen in tiny-pic above, needed to get past local
anti-spam uribl.com, sorry.)

I'm struggling to find out how to remove the headgear. Pulling the
handle hasn't worked, although I'm wary of using too much force in case
that's the wrong thing. There's no retaining screw visible. It's not
obvious that the end cap pops off where the gold rings start. Can
anyone suggest what to try and the level of force to use?

I want to get to the innards because it's dripping... It's quarter-turn
on a typical domestic combi-boiler installation, the output is divided;
hot water comes out the left half of the spout, cold the right half.

The hot side of the tap has started to drip. The frequency has slowly
increased, I'd say it's now faster than a drip a second, although it
varies a little through the day. Sometimes the tap will start a
high-pitched whistling. That can continue for about a minute and will
then be replaced by a fast noisy vibration in the tap and pipework as if
it's some kind of water hammer. It can be quelled by twisting and
holding the handle in the off direction, even though it's already fully
off, but if you let go the whistling/hammering noise returns instantly.

So instead I have to heat up the body of the tap where the handle joins
it by turning the tap on for a bit, the handle then becomes stiffer to
turn, presumably due to expansion somewhere, and when returned to off
the noises will have stopped and the dripping will have slowed. The
dripping soon returns to normal as the tap cools. Obviously, a dripping
hot tap and a combi boiler is a bad combination, the boiler is firing up
every twenty minutes.

This is my first faulty ceramic disc tap. Is this typical of a failing
cartridge? Can I temporarily swap the hot and cold cartridges to check
the fault also moves, even though that means the taps will need to be
turned the other way to normal?

Thanks, Jack.

expect the handles will come off by pulling in line - axially

We have similar tho seperate upright bathroom taps with no grub screws
or other visible means and that's how ours come off - i.e. for us
straight up with a fair bit of wiggling! For you straight out but
sideways IYSWIM.

ISTR there can be a lot of agro getting the proper cermaic cartridge
to replace the faulty one as there are loads of subtly different sizes/
specs/fitments etc. Usual advise is go to (posss several) plumbers
merchants armed with what you take off and ensure you buy the correct
"hand" replacement (else as you note the tap will work fine but
"backwards" when fixed).

There's a UK shop website with pics etc with loads of different
cartridges for sale - if you can be certain what you want.....

Cheers
Jim K