A LEAKING TAP or THE MANY STEPS IT TAKES TO RECAULK A TUB

It all started with the need to recaulk the tub. It has a surround with some broken parts, and I had hoped to clean out the poor job done before, and simply redo it, but when you buy a house from Slappy, nothing is that simple. The doors were poorly installed, and the bottom rail lifted up enough to collect all manner of grossness, visible for unfortunate viewing each time I had a bath. By the time I got the caulking out, I realized that the doors would have to come off, the hot water tap would need to replaced,  and the tub would need repair to the enamel before I could even begin.





















I don't know exactly what era these taps are from, but I did learn a few things about them.

The design is classic, and the only clue I had was a B that I found on the tub overflow drain, to represent the company Belanger.

The hot started to stick, and then leak. This preceded the cold tap, which has yet to have problems, although now that I have exchanged the cartridge, it is a little stickier than I realized!

If they  weren't 40 years old, I probably would have just tried to find the 0 ring replacement, but the entire unit is so rusted, I thought it best to exchange the entire cartridge for now.

Ironically, I have both a set of sink and shower replacements, but neither are simple exchanges (things I didn't know when I bought it because they looked pretty!). The sink should be the easiest, but the wall behind needs redoing (the tiles have holes) and the sink replacement (not only hideous, but broken) needs buying. Still, the two handles becoming one, and the cheap use of non-stainless steel plastic tubes are not ideal, in retrospect. The shower is even tougher, as it turns out, despite the back panel being accessed by the plumber, there are no valves to turn off the water, and the background fork will need changing, which will require breaking through cement and metal, and redoing a surround that apparently can't be bought in pieces, which is a shame.





The fun of it is finding the little designs to take it all apart. The silver disc pops off with my letter opener tip when you find the tiny square on the red or blue plastic circle. The shower has an extra cylinder that screws off.  The cartridge in the sink tap is easy to take off with a small monkey wrench or a combination wrench, if you have the right size ( I only seem to get to 17 mm, which was not useful). Luckily I have neighbours who hoard tools like many hoard books!

It is an easy thing to screw out, and easier still to screw back in.

I am not sure which is the ideal tool for the shower tap, as socket wrenches were too wide to fit, and the monkey wrench also doesn't fit.