Plumbing advice needed urgently!

ducey

Hi,

Last night I looked into my kitchen tap which streams when we run a bath upstairs. I had read on the internet about the ceramic valves mixer taps like mine have, and saw how to remove and check them.

I removed them both from the tap, cleaned them up and replaced them.

Now when I turn the mains back on, with both taps closed, water pours from the kitchen tap as though the taps are fully open.

Can anyone help explain what's happened and how to fix it please?!!

Then to top it off, the toilet upstairs is now constantly filling up, which is wasn't before turning the mains tap off to do the work above and now water is going into the internal overflow.

I've taken the cistern lid off and noticed that when the cup float gets to its highest point, the incoming water feed isn't being stopped as it was previously before turning the mains tap off.

What I thought was a 30 min job of removing and checking the ceramic valves turned into a 4 hour nightmare last night.

To get us through the night, I've isolated the cold water tap in the kitchen and also turned off the mains water tap, as I couldn't find a way to stop the toilet from overflowing.

Any help or advice or suggestions would be great please!
Thanks

tigeress289

First the cistern, there should be an adjustment nut just as the arm joins(normally) if plastic. You need to undo the nut and turn the screw inwards, to lower the water level. The idea is to make the water level lower so as to make the ball valve shut off the water coming in. If you have a brass ball valve, please post.
On the kitchen sink tap, I am afraid that once they are scored, there is nothing you can do to clean them up, as it can and has made it worse. I personally would isolate the kitchen tap and replace it with a new one. I believe it is cheaper in the long run. Others may be able to help further if you could load a picture of the cistern valve and tap if possible. Sort the toilet out first, it should be quite simple. Good Luck

ducey

Thanks for your help tigeress289. I've managed to fix the toilet problem; it was caused by the pressure of turning the mains tap back on that the washer in the cup float was dislodged and jamming the float open. Removing and replacing the washer fixed it.

The running tap saga is now solved as I bought a complete new tap!! Maybe drastic, but we've gone for one of the older non-ceramic cylinder types, after the first two started running water when closed.

Next task is the shower, as that's now leaking from the pipe out of the wall.

I'm learning a heck of a lot about plumbing today!