It is 9pm on a Sunday. The bathroom tap is dripping. Not flooding — just the steady, rhythmic tap of water hitting the basin. Drip. Drip. Drip. You have already tried tightening it. It made no difference. No plumber answers on Sunday, and even if one did, the call-out rate for evenings and weekends is steep.
Here is what is actually happening — and what you can do tonight.
Why the tap is dripping
Modern taps use ceramic disc cartridges to control water flow. The cartridge is a small cylindrical component inside the tap body — when you turn the handle, you rotate the disc and open or close the water channel. Over time, the ceramic surfaces wear and no longer seal completely. Water finds the gap. The tap drips.
This is the cause in the majority of dripping taps. It is not a pipe problem. It is not structural. It is a $9 part.
Can you fix it tonight?
If the drip is minor and you can turn off the water supply under the sink, you can at least stop the drip until the repair. The isolation valve — a small slotted screw or lever on the pipe beneath the sink — cuts water to that tap without affecting the rest of the house. Turn it clockwise until it stops. The dripping stops.
The full repair — replacing the cartridge — takes about 20 minutes and requires a screwdriver, an adjustable wrench, and the replacement cartridge. The cartridge is available at any hardware store; take a photo of your tap brand or the old cartridge to get the right size.
The repair, in brief
- Turn off the isolation valve under the sink.
- Remove the decorative cap on top of the handle (usually pried off with a flat screwdriver). Unscrew the handle screw and pull the handle off.
- Unscrew the cartridge retaining nut with an adjustable wrench.
- Pull the old cartridge straight out. Replace with the new one in the same orientation.
- Reassemble in reverse. Turn the water back on. Test.
The Sunday answer
Tonight: turn off the isolation valve. The dripping stops. Tomorrow: buy the cartridge. This weekend: fix it in twenty minutes.
The full step-by-step — with photos — is in She Fixed It. One of eight repairs documented the same way: what you need, what you do, in order, without assuming you have done it before.