changing kitchen taps

[thechauffeur]

My son has just moved into a new house. The kitchen taps are weeping and need replacing. The taps do not have an isolating valve fitted and we cannot figure out how to turn off the hot water supply so as to change them. He has an Ideal boiler and an immersion heater in an airing cupboard upstairs, I have turned off the boiler and closed two gate valves in the airing cupboard to no avail. Can any one help please?

[paddywak]

Have a look under the kitchen sink, the mains stop tap is often situated there, closing that will shut off your household supply. When you finally get it sorted you want to fit in line stop valves, saves a lot of time, and I believe it is now standard practise

[magicmerlin]

Are you sure they need replacing, sounds like they need new washers (about 50p), easy enough job but you still have to turn the water off.

[thechauffeur]

Thank you paddywak, I have located the main stop tap although I haven't turned it off yet because the problem is the hot tap supply. Are you saying that if I turn the cold supply off it will also isolate the hot supply? As you may have gathered this is not my area of expertise.

[paddywak]

closing the main stop will shut off the water to everything and if necessary allow you to drain the hot water system, while you change the hot water taps, but i'll be surprised if you havent got hot stop tap some where, unfortunatly I'm not a plumber so I can't really advise you just where to look, and over the years all my taps, cisterns etc have been fitted with in-line isolators so I've never had this particular problem, still some pretty knowledgable people use this site and no doubt one ill be along shortly

[terence7556]

hello the stop tap in the sink turns off all the incoming supply water but if you can locate the supply pipe from the storage cistern in the loft( i am assuming its up there or directly above your cylinder, if you are unlucky) to the cylinder base it should have a red handled gate valve and it would be better to turn it off here because you will still have a cold supply to your toilets and the kitchen sink. when you have turned it off open your hot taps and drain the water from the cylinder, thus wasteing less water
but as paddywak rightly points out you need to turn the lot off to fit two isolation valves.this is far more sensible for the future, just remember to fill the kettle first, very important that part of the work

[tezestwing]

you may be lucky if the gate valves work in the air cupboard, one pipe should defo go to the base of the hot cylinder that controls the cold top up from this tank in the loft, and thence you get hot water out of the top, this cyl never empties itself, care should be exercised when trying to close these gate valves they have a nasty habit of sticking the wedge gate shut then later to open, the spindle disengages,and a new valve is needed ,also any other valve in the air cupboard may be heating valves defo leave alone.
If you are as terence says unlucky then you will need to turn the mains off usually under the sink if you can't locate then you may need to go round inside the property to find the stop **** if you turn that off then run hot and cold taps in the lowest part then eventually the loft tank only and pipe work will be emptied and work can begin on the taps and as paddywak advises fit service valves, they are the ones with screw drive slots,to prevent accidental turning,
hth Tez

[tezestwing]

sorry ED **** tap

[thechauffeur]

Thank you all very much. This makes sense, and I will definately fit isolating valves for the future.

[paddywak]

Just been thinking of you problem thechauffer, and I think that when I had the water off I'd try to do all of the other taps etc while I was at it . The valves cost about �3 each and anybody with a couple of spanners, a pipe cutter and a bit of common sense can fit one in 5min. You may never need to use them but if you do it saves draining the system again. You'll need 2 per sink and bath 1 for the toilet cistern and 1 for the shower ( depending on the type you may need 2) and you can get chrome or brass valves depending on what pipe you're using