Talk:Tap (valve)

wrong caption
The caption on the first picture is wrong but I do not know how to change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.15.169 (talk) 08:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

mixer taps
I'm not certain of this so haven't edited, but my impression is that mixer taps are much more common in the USA than here in the UK; certainly the great majority of my friends' and family's houses still have separate taps, even on basins etc installed in the last 10 years. Loganberry (Talk) 12:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Aside from (obviously) the shower, for aesthetic reasons, I've only ever seen the point of mixer taps in the kitchen (to have a long spout you can move over two different sinks or whatever recepticals you want to fill). In the bath tub or wash basin one can simply fil it with the quantity of hot and cold needed whether is from one tap or two (when would you need a flow of water the same, apart from in the shower?).   I also don't understand the comment on differing water pressure in the UK whether a combi-system or hot water tank is being used, surely any differing pressure will occur whatever conutry it is in? Dainamo (talk) 21:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's common in many places to wash your hands under the running water. A mixing tap is essential for that purpose lest your hands freeze or be burnt. In many commercial settings that now include taps controlled by passive infrared sensors, the mix is pre-set but still present.


 * The sentence "Hands free infrared proximity sensors are replacing the standard valve." is totally wrong. The proximity sensor senses nearby motion, and then fires the electronic actuator that moves the water valve. The sensor does restrict the flow of water, a valve still impedes the flow.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.150.204.160 (talk) 01:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Atlant (talk) 17:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That's right. How can you wash your hands without a mixing tap and getting burnt? In Poland the mixing tap is the only type we use. I have been to many European countries and I have never seen separate ones, but I heard they use them in the UK and that it is very annoying :)§30


 * Trosmisiek (talk) 17:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You don't burn your hands unless you have the hot tap on a ridiculously hot setting. In a home setting, there is never a need to heat the water past the point at which it burns you. And thus, you set your water heating system to heat it to a comfortable temperature. This saves on energy, and eliminates the need for a mixer tap. As mentioned above, mixer taps are not aesthetically pleasing. 86.155.190.227 (talk) 12:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed the sentence about different pressures, I think it's just nonsense. I live in the UK now (in a student house) and hot water is sometimes really hot... and there is no way to change it. What's more, I don't think that mixer taps are not aesthetically pleasing. What's the difference, mixer or non-mixer? Except that one type is convenient and the other is not...
 * BTW, I also added a photo of taps in my bathroom; don't know how to use them yet though.
 * Trosmisiek (talk) 01:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The UK, and I believe most of Europe, uses gravity fed systems; whereas in North America, full water mains pressure is fed right through the internal plumbing systems inside buildings. The UK (and other) building codes require a water tank (usually in the roof) which is filled at full water mains pressure and the water level is maintained by a floating ball connected to a shut-off valve (similar to the arrangement in toilet tanks).  Water is then fed from there to the internal plumbing based on gravity alone.  In fact, in most or all cases, it would be a breach of the building code to feed water at full water mains pressure to a tap (mixer or not).  This is why the water pressure is generally lower in the UK and elsewhere, compared to the USA and Canada. Enquire (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Can only speak of Germany. But there water tanks and all the resulting effects like power showers are absolutely unheard off. Water mains pressure is generally quite high (several bar) See [] (German) Tilman Baumann --209.132.186.28 (talk) 16:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * What would be interesting for the article would be an explanation for the UK's preference for separate hot & cold taps. Surely aesthetics alone can't be the reason?? They don't look any better than normal taps to me. It seems like much of British house-building is stuck somewhere in the 1940s -- by the end of WW2 separate taps had disappeared from most European homes... I initially thought that here they were just using up old stock, but it appears they still produce them? You see brand new homes with those. I guess they still expect you to fill the washbasin and soak your hands in there... saving water? I don't think so. JREL (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * We (the UK) do seem to be moving gradually in the direction of mixer taps; I just looked at the taps section of the B&Q website, and out of 45 types of basin taps offered, only 12 were traditional "two-hole" models. I'm not sure why we've resisted so long, though I think part of it is an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, and part may even be cussedness: the more other countries point and laugh, the more stubborn we get about not doing what they want! Loganberry (Talk) 16:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * One can only use a simple mixer tap here in the UK if both hot and cold water are fed from the tank. It is illegal to use a "simple" mixer tap on the kitchen sink (where one gets the drinking water from!) - the mixer tap here has to be two hole type (thus there is no possibility of "old" hot water going down the cold water line if ever the cold pressure failed). As for too hot water - majority of new installations will use a tank thermostat (to save energy for one thing), and will set the temperature to about 55C, so you can't get a burn.  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This has more to do with the fact that much of Europe was levelled during WWI and WWII, whereas the UK had much less damage (in spite of the The Nazi Blitz). As a result, there was a greater level of reconstruction on the mainland of Europe compared to the British Isles.  Kitchen and bathroom taps installed in Europe and North America are more similar that different as can easily be verified by visiting websites of plumbing suppliers in North America and Europe, including the UK.  Public washrooms everywhere are much more likely to have separate taps, probably because they are cheaper than mixer taps. Enquire (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Mixer taps have been around in the UK and elsewhere in Europe most or all of the century. However, what is different is that most homes in the UK and elsewhere in Europe (and indeed Asia and most other parts of the world) are generally much older than in North America, where it is not at all unusual to tear-down a house that is only 20 or 30 years old and rebuild from scratch.  In other parts of the world houses are often older than the people who live in them and so, unless the kitchens and bathrooms have been renovated more recently, they may well have older styles of fixtures.  Modern taps around the world are increasingly similar and, in fact, many of the high-end taps seen in North America are imported from Europe. Enquire (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree. I have only seen this configuration widely used in UK. And quite frankly I don't get it. This is actually the reason why I came to this article. I hoped somebody could explain to me why even modern buildings in UK are still built with separate hot and cold taps? Is it just tradition or is there some benefit behind it that I don't understand? Sarcastically spoken the only benefit I can see is that you can quickly move your hand to the cold tap when you scalded it in the hot water to ease the pain. What is the practical side of those taps? How would they be used? Thank you. Tilman Baumann --209.132.186.28 (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * A few observations. It is not illegal to fit a mixer tap directly to the mains in UK, so long as the correct fitings are in place to prevent back-flow onto the public supply. Mixer taps are popular in kitchens, especially with a head that can rotate, for rinsing vegetables etc. Mixer taps are quite common now on baths, and on sinks solely used to wash one's hands. However there is still a demand for sperate taps on bathroom sinks - I expect this is partly due to inertia to change and also for teeth cleaning purposes. I've been in many houses where the cold tap on the bathroom sink is directly mains fed and thus provides dinkable water - the cold water provided by a header tank is not seen to be so drinkable. As to the temperature of the hot water supply, this is usually adjustable at the boiler to prevent scalding. Speaking personally, I prefer mixer taps with seperate controls for hot and cold - fancy mixers with fiddly settings for flow and temperature all invariable slightly different and take a lot of minute adjustments to get the desired temperature, leading to water and energy wastage. Markb (talk) 07:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

An interesting discussion as I had never wondered why we usually have two taps in the UK - it just seemed normal. After some research I found there are two common water systems in houses. The traditional UK system supplied water at mains pressure to the cold taps and filled an open header tank via a ballcock (vented system) that fed the hot water circuit. This tank was placed high in the building, but only produced a low pressure supply as the driving force was gravity. This difference in pressure meant the cold flow overpowered the hot in many designs of mixer taps which were intended for equal pressures in the two feeds. The use of two taps on sinks, baths etc meant there was no problem as they mixed in the receptacle. Many houses, either from new or as replacements, are now fitted with combi boilers that heat water directly from the mains and supply it to hot taps as required. With this system the header tank is no longer required and is removed from the system. 86.24.70.90 (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)Moriarty

Some facts. China produces some 500,000,000 separate hot and cold valves (headworks) each year. You then add to that the output of India & Europe. Over 90% are ceramic disc cartridges rather than the 'traditional' rubber washer variety. These are used in taps with separate hot and cold handles in every single one of the 195 countries that make up planet earth today. The notion that separate hot & cold is dead simply doesn't add up. Brazil consume, from just one manufacturer we deal with, 3,000,000 each year & Argentina another 2,200,000. That's from one Chinese maker.

The original indoor plumbing, Romans not withstanding, was British. We did it using separate tanks so traditionally had low pressure systems even though the original patent was for a high pressure valve. The rest of the world started many years after the UK so learned many valuable lessons. The British Empire went low pressure but everywhere else went high pressure and circumvented the awful tanks and low flow rates. TapMedic (talk) 00:48, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Tapping barrels
We've just had a recent addition to include the use of 'tap' as a verb, e.g. which is good. But doesn't it apply to more than metal smelting. For example does one 'tap' a keg of beer when driving the wooden tap into the end of the barrel? -- Solipsist 12:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * To tap a vessel containing liquid metal is to remove the liquid from the vessel...
 * If I am not mistaken, that is where the noun 'tap' comes from. In origin, the tap was the process of inserting the spigot; tapping the spigot against the bung forces the latter into the barrel and jams the former into the bung hole. This method forces the spigot and hole together so rapidly that there is very little spillage. That done, the barrel has been tapped so the valve in the spigot is called a tap.
 * However, there is room to think that the application of the word 'tap' to this process originates in the spindle shape of the spigot. (Compare 'tap root') The meanings of the German masculine noun Zapfen parallel this meaning of one form or another of short, tapered stick. (RJP 16:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC))


 * Certainly the process of knocking a tap into a cask (not a "keg", please! :-) ) is known as tapping. Although I think you might be right that the noun comes from the verb, I find it unlikely that it's from "tapping the spigot against the bung". If nothing else, it's more of a whack than a tap! Keystone (cask) and related articles have more about this including an action photo.


 * In addition, I'd be interested in what you make of the word "spigot". It's not something I've encountered in my extensive experience of the Real Ale world, or anywhere else really although I was aware of the word. I looked it up a few months ago and the OED if I remember rightly described it as a wooden peg pushed into a hole to regulate the flow - basically a primitive forerunner of a tap or valve. However, I've seen it used by Americans to mean a tap, especially one that's not over a sink (eg outside, for attaching a hose). PeteVerdon 01:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I was the user that added the verb section. The use of 'tap' in smelting was probably influenced by 'tapping' for beer barrels, as the method is similar: the taphole at the base of a blast furnace, for example, is sealed with a clay plug that is drilled out when tapping commences. Electric arc furnaces usually have a mechanical flap, backed up by sand, to close their tapholes. Sentinel75 05:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've just Googled 'to tap' and I feel that verb meanings shouldn't be in this article; why don't I modify that section to point to a Wiktionary entry on 'tap (verb)'? Sentinel75 05:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem with verb meanings of "tap" being in Wikipedia (as opposed to Wiktionary) but you're right that they don't belong on this page. Neither, in fact, do the other "other meanings" - the number of different uses of the word is precisely why it has a disambiguation page. In fact, two of the three "other meanings" were already listed on that page; I've added your molten metal one as well. PeteVerdon 13:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Cone Valves
The description at the end of a cone valve is not correct. I think what he is referring to is a ball valve, which has a ball with a hole through the middle of it. A cone valve Has a cone within a larger cone shaped housing. The flow is controlled by moving the inside cone up and away from the housing.

US specifics
A note on why Americans have two multiple-syllable words for taps whilst the rest of the English speaking world just has the simple 'tap' would be welcome. :)  Anon.
 * Possibly for the same reason why we in Britain fancify a car engine cover by calling it a "bonnet" whereas in the U.S. they simply call it a "hood". I suggest you think of the proverb concerning people in glass houses..... Dainamo (talk) 21:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Nicely put. In case the question actually is sincere, well, in my experience a "spigot" refers to a tap that is outside (attached to a building or to a pipe from the ground), and a "faucet," to one that is inside.  But that's just my experience, which is why I'll leave it here and not in the article. GeeZee (talk) 13:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My lifelong U.S. English experience is exactly whatGeeZee described above. At least in my region (east coast U.S.), that's definitely a reality of the language. I just looked them both up in a Merriam-Webster and it doesn't include that distinction, but that just means that it may be limited in age or regionally. Meanwhile, "tap" can refer to either. — ¾-10 01:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

What's the origin of the word "faucet"? It looks like French but I'm assuming it's pronounced faw-set and not faw-say as one would expect from a French word? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.211.72.73 (talk) 03:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * According to my Google skills in-depth and painstaking research:


 * Middle English, from Old French fausset, cask stopper, from fausser, to break in, from Late Latin falsāre, to falsify, from Latin falsus, false; see false -Wafulz (talk) 14:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not so US-specific as you might think. Faucet was the usual word for "tap" in the West Yorkshire dialect when I was a boy there in the fifties and sixties of the last century. Still used there, I think. AdeMiami (talk) 15:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a cite for UK usage of 'faucet': Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave has 'dripped like leaking faucets' in Chap. 10 (which is in fact what drew me here). She was born in Sunderland, so perhaps it's North Country usage. Also, I query whether some of the other terms are not common in the UK as well, e.g. 'spigot', 'bib cock', which my ODE doesn't qualify as American. In any case, if the article is going to have this UK/US section, it had better be accurate. 'Chiefly US' would do; it's a weasel, but it's common in dictionaries. Good cites would help! Or is this overworking it? 'WP is not a dictionary'.

BTW, I have never heard the term "faucet water", given in the article as an e.g. of US usage. Some brief in-depth research (see above) finds the phrase only in combinations such as "faucet water filtration system". Does anyone actually say, "I'll just have a glass of faucet water, please"? In fact, just a few lines later, the article gives 'tap water' as an example of US usage of 'tap'! Perhaps the editor intended the use in a compound phrase as above? --D Anthony Patriarche, BSc (talk) 08:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * On yet further reflection, I think I see what is wrong. This is a semi-technical article, and this section is a list of terms (both technical & common); regional usage is secondary. So kill the country subheads & just put '(chiefly US)' &c where appropriate. I would also prefer 'Terminology'.for the section head; 'Nomenclature' gets us thinking in dictionary mode right away. The lead will also need to be changed to correspond. If no-one strenuously objects, I will make the changes. --D Anthony Patriarche, BSc (talk) 10:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Faucet and Finish Comparison Video
http://www.plumbersurplus.com/videos/Faucet-and-Finish-Comparison-Buying-Guide/7 Above is a neat video describing faucet finishes and a comparison of the most common finishes. --216.70.141.161 17:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Bibcocks and drain cocks?
Bibcock gets routed to this page, but the only mention of bibcock is "Most U.S. jurisdictions now require bibcocks to have a vacuum breaker or backflow preventer,..." It's not clear whether a bibcock is the same as a tap/whether such US jurisdictions require this for all taps. Wakablogger2 (talk) 23:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I also redirected "Drain cock" here, but there's is no real information - in particular I wanted to know the difference between a "type A" and "type B". Guess I can ask at the reference desk. Rich Farmbrough, 15:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC).

Leaky/dripping taps
Surely this merits some attention? Vranak (talk) 02:38, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Leakage should be discussed under "Physics of taps". Ongoing leakage results in erosion of the seat and when the seat is eroded, washer replacement is not a really successful repair.
 * The rubber washer and seat are mentioned but additional details can be added. In some designs the seat is removable; in others it is integral.  In North America the rubber washers have cone and disk forms and a range of sizes with a peculiar nomenclature.  Regards, ... PeterEasthope (talk) 15:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Rubber washer type valves at water outlets indoors a household have been in large part relaced by one-lever-type (usually mixing cold and hot) in the last 20 years. There are even valves with extraordinary long levers to be moved by the knees or elbows e.g. for handwash tables of operation rooms in hospitals or similar situations. There are cartridges with ceramic disc technology to be screwed in as a upgrade substitition part into originally rubber washer types, they are to be open fully by a 120 degrees turn of the knob, one each for cold and hot water). Garden taps and (not to big) block valves in houses remained mainly rubber valves. to repair their leaking is not always necessary, as they are mainly used to interrupt the line to rebuild the line or tap downstream. The should be kept moveable by turning them off and on just once a year or so to avoid being encrusted by chalk from hard water. To service a rubber-fitted tap: Test it - should closeable by turning with soft momentum. Get replace parts and tools. Unscrew cartridge. Contol valve seat (a lip) to corrosion. Eventually mill this brass seat to get it channel-free. Exchange the rubber washer, simple: plane type or noble (e.g. by Grohe, less loud) conical or spherical types. Grease the actuator screw with silicon-PTFE-grease. Or replace a worn out catridge as one part. Endcontrol or leakings. - Cut off valves are situated in the streets underground, before and on a branch, where the lines enters a house, where it changes from black plastics to iron, in front and after the watering meter. At bigger lines (2 inches diameter and more) penstock valves (shut-off slides) are used, --Helium4 (talk) 10:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Picture - inside a tap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tap.png shows a (slightly too steep) left-handed crew. It should be left-right mirrored to inverse it. --Helium4 (talk) 10:58, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Specific terms for components
I'd like to break this down further. What is the term for the part grasped and twisted by the hand? What is the part for the downward-facing opening which the water exits from? 70.51.192.235 (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems that the part grasped is called a "handle" or "lever" and the downward-facing part is the "spout". There are a lot of diagrams online. Try googling "parts of a tap" and looking at the pictures that come up. But we had better wait for a plumbing expert to provide a diagram with labels.METRANGOLO1 (talk) 07:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)