How to replace a KITCHEN TAP

Give your kitchen a lift by treating your sink to a shiny new mixer tap – you can fit it yourself with just a little expert know-how

-  STEPHANIE DURRANT

When your kitchen is in need of a refresh but large projects are beyond the budget, why not upgrade your taps instead? It’s a job you can tackle yourself and there are plenty of low-cost mixer tap designs available.

PREPARE THE AREA

1 Make a note of which supply pipe is hot and which is cold. Turn off your water with the isolating valves, or by shutting the stopcock. Run the tap to drain any water. Lay an old towel inside the unit and put a bucket underneath to catch drips.

DISCONNECT THE TAP

2 Loosen the nut attaching the tap to the mains pipe using an adjustable wrench (you may have two supply pipes each end with a compression fitting or two shut off valves in the pipes under the sink). In each case, disconnect the joints with the wrench.

REMOVE THE OLD TAP