Dripping tap fix: what the drip is telling you and how we stop it
A constant drip from the spout is nearly always a worn washer or cartridge. Identifying which saves you paying for the wrong part.
Booking fee plus hourly labour — the price is confirmed before any work starts.
What this costs
| Booked 14+ days ahead | £25 booking fee £85 per hour |
|---|---|
| Booked within 48 hours | £100 booking fee £65 per hour |
| Same-day call-out | £220 booking fee £45 per hour |
The booking fee secures the visit. Labour is then charged by the hour, so you only pay for the time the job actually takes.
Booking fee £25–£220
£25 + £85/hr booked 14+ days ahead, £100 + £65/hr inside 48 hours, £220 + £45/hr same day. Agreed before we arrive.
Covered under Taps
Plumbing › Taps — one of 17 documented jobs in this section.
Same-day dripping tap repair
Urgent jobs can often be booked for today. Ask when you book and we will confirm the slot before you pay anything.
15 service areas
Birmingham, Coventry, Dorridge and 12 more across the West Midlands.
What a drip from the spout means
If water appears at the spout when the handle is closed, the problem is inside the valve, not in the pipework. On a traditional pillar or bath tap there is a rubber washer pressed onto a metal seat; when the washer hardens or flattens, it stops sealing. On a quarter-turn or lever tap there is a ceramic cartridge with two plates, and a drip means one plate has scored or grit has got between them. Occasionally the cause is a damaged seat under the washer, which is why fitting a new washer without checking the seat often fails within a fortnight.
The usual causes, in order of frequency
Worn washers first, by a wide margin. They harden with heat and age, and they distort if the tap is forced shut. Scored cartridges second, common in hard water areas where limescale grit passes through. A grit particle trapped on the seat will produce a drip that comes and goes. Third is a damaged seat or a cartridge housing that has corroded. Less often, the drip comes from a tap that was fitted with the wrong cartridge in the first place, or from a mixer where the hot and cold pressures are wildly different.
Why it is worth fixing sooner rather than later
A drip is a metered loss, and on the hot side you paid to heat that water as well. The visible damage matters more: limescale staining on stainless and ceramic, softened sealant at the back of the worktop, and in a bathroom, a permanent water mark on the tray. A tap held shut with extra force to stop the drip accelerates the wear, so the fault gets worse faster the longer you live with it. There is also the small daily irritation of hearing it at night, which is reason enough for most people.
How we diagnose it
It takes less time than you would expect. We confirm the drip is from the spout and not from the base or the tail, because that changes the job entirely. We identify the tap type and, where possible, the cartridge model before ordering anything. We isolate at the service valve, strip the head and look at the washer and the seat under a light. A scored seat is obvious; so is a cartridge with a worn ceramic face. If the tap is old and the cartridge is obsolete, we say so before you commit to a repair.
How we fix it
We isolate the supply, dismantle the head, and replace the failed component with the correct part — a washer of the right size and hardness for a traditional tap, or a matched cartridge for a ceramic one. If the seat is scored we reseat it; on a tap where reseating is not viable we replace the tap head or the tap itself and tell you why. A washer change is the classic tap washer replacement, and it is the cheapest repair in the book. The body is reassembled, the supply restored, and the tap run through hot and cold while we watch for weeping at the base and the spout. Then the basin is dried and the area cleared. A specialist cartridge is extra, always quoted before we fit it.
Stopping it coming back
Turn taps off gently — the washer only needs to meet the seat, not be crushed into it. In a hard water area, consider a scale reducer on the cold feed; it protects cartridges and the washing machine alike. Have both taps seen to at the same time if they were installed together, since they wear at the same rate. And if a tap starts to need a firmer hand to shut it off, that is the point to book a visit rather than waiting for the drip to become a trickle.
When to call us
You cannot stop dripping tap water by tightening the head; the washer has already failed by then. Call when the drip is constant, when the tap will not shut off at all, or when water appears at the base rather than the spout — the last one is a different repair and can damage the unit below. If water is running and the isolator will not hold, treat it as an emergency tap repair and close the stopcock. Searching for tap repair near me on a Sunday tends to produce callout charges rather than plumbers; a booked weekday slot is cheaper and just as permanent. We also handle the awkward cases — old brass pillar taps, bath mixers with seized heads, and taps set into stone or composite worktops where the wrong tool does real damage. A leaking tap repair on a weekday is a short visit, and one visit is normally enough for a dripping tap fix; two taps in the same house usually fit into a single slot.
Book a call-out
Tell us the tap type and whether it is hot, cold or both, and we will bring the likely parts. Book online or ring the office and we will confirm a time.
How the price works
We charge a booking fee to hold your slot, then an hourly rate for the work itself. The fee changes with how soon you need us; the hourly rate changes with the slot you choose. You approve the price before we start, so there is no surprise on the invoice.
Booked 14+ days ahead
£25 booking fee
then £85 per hour of labour
Best value. Book the slot now, pay the smallest booking fee.
Booked within 48 hours
£100 booking fee
then £65 per hour of labour
For jobs that can wait a day or two but not a fortnight.
Same-day call-out
£220 booking fee
then £45 per hour of labour
Urgent problems: standing water, no heat, no power, leaks.
Book the slot
Choose the window that suits you and pay the booking fee. That holds your place in the diary.
We diagnose on site
The engineer confirms the cause and tells you what the job involves and how long it should take.
You approve, we work
Nothing goes ahead until you agree the price. Labour is then charged per hour at your slot rate.
A tap that drips when it is fully closed has a worn valve inside it — usually a flattened washer or a scored ceramic cartridge. Left alone it stains the basin, wastes metered water and can cost you a tap seat as well as a washer. We identify the type, replace the worn part with a matched one, test hot and cold, and clear up.
What our customers say about our plumbing service
4.7 out of 5 from 11 reviews
Second time we have used them
What I appreciated was being told what was actually wrong before anyone started. Sorted in under 32 minutes and the invoice matched the quote to the penny.
Job: Loose Pipe Connections Repair
Worth the booking fee
Booked the £220 booking-fee slot on Tuesday and got a message confirming the time the same morning. The cause was explained, the price agreed before any work started, and the job was done in about 75 minutes. Clean and tidy when they left.
Job: Hidden Pipe Leak Repair
Turned up when they said
Turned up in the window they promised, walked me through the options (turns out the part had to be sourced locally), then cracked on. Everything was tested before they left. No mess, no drama, no surprise on the bill.
Job: Central Heating Leak Repair
Book Dripping Tap Repair
Tell us what is happening and choose a slot. If you are not sure this is the right job, use the diagnosis panel — it narrows the problem down before you book.
- Booking fee confirmed up front
- Hourly labour, agreed before work starts
- Same-day slots for urgent problems
Questions people ask about dripping tap repair
Straight answers to the things customers ask most often before booking.
Can I just turn the tap harder to stop the drip?
That makes it worse. Forcing the handle drives the washer into the seat and distorts it, and on a ceramic cartridge it can crack a plate. If the tap needs more than light pressure to shut off, the washer or cartridge is already worn.
Is it always the washer?
On a traditional tap, almost always. On a lever or quarter-turn tap there is no washer at the spout end — it is a ceramic cartridge, and that is what gets replaced. We identify the type before quoting so you are not paying for the wrong part.
How is the work priced?
You pay a booking fee when you book, and labour is charged hourly at a rate that depends on how quickly you need us. The full cost of the work is quoted before we start, so you approve it before any tools come out.
Do you need to drain the system?
No, not for a tap with a working service valve underneath. We isolate locally, which is why this is a short job. If there is no isolator and the stopcock is seized, we deal with that first and explain the extra cost.
Should I replace the tap instead of repairing it?
Only when the body is cracked, the seat cannot be reseated, or the cartridge is no longer made. A repair is nearly always cheaper, and keeping a tap that matches the rest of the suite is usually the better outcome.
Need dripping tap repair sorted?
Book a slot in the diary and pay only the booking fee up front. We confirm the rest before we start.