"Victoria" wrote
| Could someone help. I have a cold water tap on a mixer tap on
| the bath which has increasingly become stiff so that now I
| only get a trickle of water sometimes nothing at all. The hot
| water on the mixer taps runs fine and all the other cold taps
| in the house also run fine which makes me think it is a washer
| or something on the one cold tap.
| I and my partner are DIY novices but if someone could give us
| a step by step idiots guide from removing the taps to
| investigating and solving the problem I would very much
| appreciate it.

I posted this back in August. For 'hot' read 'cold' in your application.

The hot tap washer is stuck on its seating. What usually happens is that
the O-ring seals in the spiral mechanism fail due to scale abrasion, letting
water into the spiral. This causes the taps to become difficult to turn on
or off, increases wear in the spiral, and may cause either leakage at the
spindle at the top, or the tap will not open at all.

If you go to www.screwfix.com (or a competitor who is currently trading) and
search for "tap reviver" you will get what you need - replacement innards.
You can usually re-use the old handles if you want them to match.

You need to turn off the water to the tap first.

The following are instructions for changing the washer, but show the inside
of a tap clearly.
http://www.diydata.com/problem/taps/washer_replace.htm
http://www.diydata.com/problem/taps/taps_seats.htm
http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/diy/webpages/308_309.htm


Owain