On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:17:27 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

What is it with plumbers & fibre washers in tap connectors?

Its actually rare to find one. Usual practice seems to be to wrap loads of
PTFE tape around the bottom of the connector & hope for the best.

Helping my daughters bloke remove entire bathroom today prior to refurb, not
one single tap connector had a washer, all bodged with PTFE.

Bearing in mind a bag of 100 is only £3 why don't people use them?

People nowadays either expect to buy a specific item (part number
whatever) for a particular job, or are happy to botch a job with
makeshift items such as PTFE tape, WD-40, car body filler (does
anybody actually use CBF for filling car bodies?) - there's very
little true utilisation of generic items (a.k.a. bodging!) (including
washers!).


ISTR that fibre washers were used for hot-water systems and rubber for
cold-water. This applied also to tap-washers. However, since synthetic
rubber came about, (conventional) tap washers are more usually
synthetic rubber, which is a bit more durable than fibre when in
regular operation.


--
Frank Erskine