On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:35:40 -0800 (PST), dg wrote:

On 24 Jan, 21:20, NT wrote:
On Jan 24, 8:44*pm, "Roger Mills" wrote:

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
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?

I've had quite a few that have gone soggy and/or crumbled over a period of
time - and then they leak!

One connector had failed due to the fibre washer. I made a few
attempts with a couple of new fibre washers, and got nowhere.
Substituted a rubber one and perfectly watertight first time.

NT

I've often wondered what is the difference/correct usage of fibre,
rubber, nylon washers

dg

My last shower hose had fibre washers - no use, as the fittings can't be
very tight, so rubber washers did the trick.

I've just used nylon washers between bib taps and upstands as that was a
hard join (damned things needed some packing as they were 100 deg. out)
for location and rigidity, with PTFE as the actual seal.
Nylon will creep under load (so my bodge above might have limited life on
the hot tap) so hard fibre washers could be better - and black would look
better than white nylon (the thin black fibre washer between shroud and
body is almost invisible against chromium).

I use both fibre washers and sealant; the sealant will protect the washer
to some extent.
--
Peter.
2x4 - thick plank; 4x4 - two of 'em.