Washer, seat, O-ring or ceramic cartridge — how to tell from where it drips, and why a tap that drips again a week later means the seat, not the washer.
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Taps, mixers and showers
A dripping tap is one of the very few plumbing jobs where the failed part is small, cheap and standard — and one of the few you may be allowed to touch.
Two kinds of tap, two completely different repairs
Almost every tap in an Australian house is one of two designs, and telling them apart is the whole diagnosis.
A traditional tap turns several times, has a spindle inside, and seals with a rubber washer pressed against a brass seat. When it drips from the spout, the washer has gone, or the seat has been scored and now cuts every new washer you fit. A quarter-turn tap moves ninety degrees and seals with a ceramic disc cartridge; there is no washer to change, and the repair is a cartridge swap. A mixer is a single lever over one cartridge, and a mixer that drips is almost always a cartridge, not a washer.
Where the drip is coming from tells you which part. Dripping from the spout is the washer or cartridge. Weeping from under the handle when the tap is on is the O-ring or gland. Water appearing at the base of the spout on a mixer is a body O-ring. Water appearing in the cupboard below is a connection, not the tap.
The legal bit, which is not the same in every state. Replacing a tap washer is generally treated as minor maintenance rather than licensed plumbing work; replacing the tap itself, cutting into pipework or anything involving the water supply connection is plumbing work. That distinction is set by each state and territory — licensed work explains how to check yours rather than guessing from a video filmed in another country.
Taps guides
Sources
What this page explains is based on these official sources. If you check one and it does not match what you read here, send it to us and the article gets corrected.
- NSW Fair Trading. Plumbers, drainers and gasfitters — licensing
- Australian Building Codes Board. National Construction Code — Volume Three (Plumbing Code of Australia)