Bathroom tap

gadget88

After a warm shower my bathroom cold tap sometimes won’t turn on any ideas what could cause it? I still have water downstairs 

Bendy_House

Where do I start asking questions...?
Bath/shower mixer?
Conventional or ceramic tap valves?
And what do you mean by 'wont turn on'? The handle won't physically move? It moves but no water comes out?
We ain't psychopathic on here, you know.

gadget88

It’s non electric one of those ones which runs off the cold/hot water. It will turn but no water comes out 

gadget88

Sometimes the water comes back a few hours after or sometimes minutes after 

Bendy_House

Photo please?

gadget88

As you can see it stops working then a trickle then comes back a few hours later sometimes less

Bendy_House

Ok, that's a conventional tap, with a rubber washer inside to do the water shutting off. To operate the tap takes a number of turns.

I'm guessing the tap feels funny when you try and work it? Ie, it doesn't spin smoothly 4 or 5 turns from full off to full on, but has a kind of roughness/stiffness which occurs after a turn or so?

The most likely explanation is that the screwed spindle inside is 'dry' of grease, or become clogged. The cold tap therefore doesn't open very far, and then - seemingly weirdly - when you run the hot tap, the heat in the body of the tap makes the spindle expand and shut off the cold tap even further. This usually only happens with hot taps - because they are the ones that get hot - but I'm guessing it's happening here because of the shared 'hot' body.

To fix this will require the tap head coming off - I'm guessing the ceramic part is just pulled off - and then the tap assembly is unbolted. It'll then need stripping down - a circlip is removed - and the whole screw assembly cleaned up and lub'ed.

Fit a new rubber washer while you are at it.

There are bound to be lots of YouTube videos describing this.

gadget88

Thanks not sure I would feel confident doing it myself but I could get someone out to fix it. Any ideas why it works the rest of time and only when showering?

Bendy_House

Nope!

There's very little to go wrong in these taps, and a sticky screw thread is about it. Quite common, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsRjvnuO0w

MalMonroe

Bendy_House said:

Where do I start asking questions...?
Bath/shower mixer?
Conventional or ceramic tap valves?
And what do you mean by 'wont turn on'? The handle won't physically move? It moves but no water comes out?
We ain't psychopathic on here, you know.

You sure about that?   

MalMonroe

If you're renting, get your landlord out to fix it. Otherwise, a handy plumber.

I wouldn't try to fix it myself either. . .  not even if there IS a handy movie . . .