Hi all,
I joined today and am a newbie at plumbing DIY. Thought I'd share my experience replacing the stopcock under my sink.
The old one looked very corroded around the tap handle. An Anglian Water engineer was at the property measuring my water pressure and flow rate. When he saw the corrosion on the stopcock he suggested the low flow rate is likely to be due to corrosion inside the stopcock, and suggested replacing it. I called a couple of plumbers who quoted north of £120 to do it. After watching a couple of YouTube videos I decided I could have a go. It ended up being fairly easy and took me about an hour.
Just in case this is useful for other newbies, here is what I did:
Total time: About an hour
The YouTube videos I found to be useful:
The stopcock I bought: Pegler Brass Stopcock 15mm (Toolstation product code 55154)
The tools I needed:
I joined today and am a newbie at plumbing DIY. Thought I'd share my experience replacing the stopcock under my sink.
The old one looked very corroded around the tap handle. An Anglian Water engineer was at the property measuring my water pressure and flow rate. When he saw the corrosion on the stopcock he suggested the low flow rate is likely to be due to corrosion inside the stopcock, and suggested replacing it. I called a couple of plumbers who quoted north of £120 to do it. After watching a couple of YouTube videos I decided I could have a go. It ended up being fairly easy and took me about an hour.
Just in case this is useful for other newbies, here is what I did:
- Measured the diameter of the pipes going in and out. They were both 15mm.
- Googled 15mm brass stopcock and found one on Toolstation.
- Called Toolstation because I didn't know if it came with the copper washers (called "olives", obviously!!! shrug).
- It does come with two olives, so I didn't need to buy any.
- Turned off the mains water at the meter at the road.
- Laid towels all around the kitchen cupboard.
- Unscrewed the nuts on the old stopcock with the pipe wrench, using the pliers to hold the stopcock still.
- Pulled off the old olives. One was sticky and I needed to wiggle it a lot with the pliers.
- The other one was turning with the pliers, but would not come off because the pipe had a lip or groove that the olive was getting stuck on.
- Used the hacksaw to cut diagonally across the olive. I did this very slowly (as per the video) checking often so as not to damage the pipe underneath once I had cut through.
- Once I had the cut deep enough, I was able to get a small flathead screwdriver under the edge and lever it up, splitting the olive, and then peeling it off the pipe.
- Removed the old nuts.
- Cleaned both ends of the pipe and used the sandpaper to get the pipe surface shiny and smooth.
- Put the new nuts on the pipes, and the new olives.
- Tightened the nuts using the pipe wrench, using the pliers to hold the stopcock still.
- I follwed the second YouTube video for how much to turn the nuts to tighten them.
- I did not use any jointing compound or plumbing tape (as advised by the video).
- Turned on the mains, and all working as expected, with no leaks.
Total time: About an hour
The YouTube videos I found to be useful:
The stopcock I bought: Pegler Brass Stopcock 15mm (Toolstation product code 55154)
The tools I needed:
- Pipe wrench
- Standard pliers
- Mini hacksaw
- small flathead screwdriver
- Fine sandpaper (600)
