Ben's plumbing odyssey : 1. The leaky pipe

My plumbing oddysey began with a leaky pipe. Drip, Drip, Drip, it had been that way for a few days. A 20cm length of pipe protruding from the eaves of my house was dripping constantly. There was a permanently wet patch on the front step. "Perhaps I should take a look" I thought.

So I climbed into the loft and found the water tank. It was an old, cubical shaped, plastic tank. It used the standard ballcock device to switch the water off. The ball drops, the valve opens and water fills the tank. The ball is raised and the flow stops. Unfortunately, in this case it did not stop. It just continued to drip, drip, drip.

So, next step, to locate the main water supply to the house. For all
you newbies reading this, this is known as the rising main - I didn't know then either. This was located in the broom cupboard next to the front door.

I turned off the supply tap. "Good" I thought, "At least there wont be a flood now".

Back in the loft I started trying to dismantle the ballcock assembly. The valve was made completely of brass and covered in a residue of limescale - horrible stuff, it gets under your fingernails, it's abrasive, yuck. After dismantling the valve I discovered that leak seemed to emanate from a white plastic tube which resembled a short section of wax candle.

I contacted my father and asked him for some advice. He knew exactly what to do. Essentially the 'candle' thingy unscrewed and inside was a rubber disc. The rubber had perished which had meant that it did not form a proper seal to cut off the water flow when the ballcock was raised.

My father had brought a replacement washer with him suspecting this was the problem all along. We reassembled the valve and BINGO, no more drips.

It seems silly now that it caused so much trouble and that I could have been so ignorant of something so simple.

But at the time it felt great to solve the problem. No more drips and no unexpected bill from the local plumber.