More plumbing!

The cold water kitchen tap finally decided to stop working yesterday. The plastic knob on the top no longer turned the tap on and off due to wear and tear.
Luckily about two or three years ago, my brother was replacing his kitchen sink and taps and was about to throw out the lot. I stepped in and retrieved the two taps and kept them, thinking that I would replace mine with them (my two were already a cause for concern back then).
So I turned the water off and decided to see if the valve assembly from my brothers taps would fit in on my faulty tap.

Luckily it did and as a result, I didn't even have to get under the sink to remove the old tap. I now have a fixed tap that cost nothing to repair and I have a spare valve assembly on the second tap I got off my brother which can be used in future for another free repair.

Toilet repairs!

Last year I got heavily ripped off by a plumbing franchise that over charged me for a simple repair. Recently the flush stopped working on my toilet and I was loath to find a plumber again to fix it. I think they would have charged at least £50, probably £100 would have been closer to the mark.

So I decided to research the components via the DIY stores web sites (B&Q and Wickes) and spotted the Syphon component I needed, total cost £16.99 (bought the component from the local store, not online).

Here is a photo of the old unit (my loo is old fashioned). The new unit is black plastic and does the same job. Had to turn the water off and emptied the cistern before making the replacement. I also tied back the ball cock lever as an extra precaution to stop water getting into the cistern whilst working on it.

Anyway, once the old syphon had been removed I discovered the only fault was that the thin plastic 'valve' had split in two and could probably be repaired with some new plastic cut to shape.
I decided to put the new syphon in and try and repair the old one, to be used as a back up in case the new one breaks in the future.

Thankfully the toilet is working again. Total cost, £16.99 and completed in about 30 minutes!