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Choices For Wash Basin Wastes?


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We have recently fitted a new wash basin on "Flamingo", and the waste that came with it was of the spring loaded "pop up" variety - it all seemed very slick at first.

However after very little use, it now totally refuses to "pop down".  It has had little opportunity for the mechanism to get blocked by anything, but without fully removing it and all the fairly tightly fitted plumbing I can't say what has gone wrong.

I'm tempted to replace it, and the options, it seems, are....

 

1) Another "pop up" one, (there are multiple types - some fit into the hole, others incorporate a dome over it, and the actual seal is just a bit of flexible plastic).

2) The "flip over" type

3) Good old fashioned hole with a removable plug.

We don't have an option 4 of something operated by a lever and rods, as there is no provision for this on either the basin or taps.

If we go for a removable plug the basin lacks anything to attach a "chain" to, so the plug would need to be kept loose  not ideal really.

Cath says that people have suggested to her that the "flip over" type area  nightmare, and to be avoided, but she can't remember any reasons given.

So what do people have, and how well has it worked?  What are the issues with anything you now have, or have tried in the past?

Having paid for one, and gone through the efforts of fitting it, I want to try to ensure the cost and effort of replacing it results in something functional and reliable.

Thanks.

 

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I have had the same situation on my boat. Started off with a pop up basin waste, which wasn't reliable. Replaced it with a traditional hole waste with plug and chain. Again, like your sink there wasn't a hole in the basin to bolt the other end of the chain to, so I just drilled a hole through the counter top behind the basin for the chain bolt. Simple. Reliable.

 

Jen

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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:

We have recently fitted a new wash basin on "Flamingo", and the waste that came with it was of the spring loaded "pop up" variety - it all seemed very slick at first.

However after very little use, it now totally refuses to "pop down".  It has had little opportunity for the mechanism to get blocked by anything, but without fully removing it and all the fairly tightly fitted plumbing I can't say what has gone wrong.

Maybe nothing - try twisting the popup top as some of these are screw adjustable to alter the seal.

 

It might just have rotated far enough that it can't engage on the lock.

 

Other types allow you to pull the popup up out of the fitting for adjustment or cleaning.

 

Do you know what make/model it is?

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Steve_C said:

Funnily enough i had too change ours a couple of months back from a malfunctioning pop up type and replaced with this https://www.screwfix.com/p/retained-basin-waste/57005

Ah, another option that might suit.

Excuse my ignorance, but how does it work exactly?

Do you pull it up with the little lug on top, and it then stays up (by friction?) until you push it down again?

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

This any help 

 

 

Nope, it's nothing like that, and you can't screw the works out of it from the top.

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Just now, alan_fincher said:

Ah, another option that might suit.

Excuse my ignorance, but how does it work exactly?

Do you pull it up with the little lug on top, and it then stays up (by friction?) until you push it down again?

Yes you pull it up with the lug and cock it over to one side where by it usually stays. On the odd occasion it slips back down but not very often. You will acquire the knack of lifting and cocking over in short order. No fancy parts to go wrong either.

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2 hours ago, Loddon said:

In the "work" sink where i do all my dirty jobs like cleaning paint brushes etc I have a flip over one much better than the pull up/down one.

Been in a couple of years so far. 

 

33 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I have  a 'flip over' type for the bathroom sink  at home and it has been okay several years.


So two votes for "flip over" and no negative experiences yet.  I must admit this was the way my mind was going until OH said she could remember people telling her "not at any cost!"

Unless they jam up, I'm struggling to see what can go wrong with them, (unlike spring loaded pop up types)

2 minutes ago, Steve_C said:

Yes you pull it up with the lug and cock it over to one side where by it usually stays. On the odd occasion it slips back down but not very often. You will acquire the knack of lifting and cocking over in short order. No fancy parts to go wrong either.


Thanks - it does sound like about as unlikely to fail as anything.  With a seperate non retained plug not on a chain, I bet we would end up losing it on a regular basis!

Edited by alan_fincher
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14 minutes ago, reg said:

2 out of 3 of these screwfix pop-up basins work o.k. I got the 3rd one. 

Yes, mine's not a Screwfix one, but I'm feeling much the same.  I might not feel so miffed if it had been "popped" a few thousand times before expiring, but I suspect it didn't manage more than a few dozen times.

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6 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

1) Another "pop up" one, (there are multiple types - some fit into the hole, others incorporate a dome over it, and the actual seal is just a bit of flexible plastic).

2) The "flip over" type

3) Good old fashioned hole with a removable plug.

 

Have a guess which one I'd recommend, after decades of experience fitting bathrooms.... 

 

:giggles:

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Personally. I would go for a traditional plug on a chain, and if there isn't a hole in the sink to fix it, use a longer chain and attatch it to the nearest available flat surface. I have never cared much for Pop up plugs which never seem to last very long, and they take ages to drain. I can never understand why designers think it is a good idea to replace a well proven system with something that is designed to fail.

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13 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

Personally. I would go for a traditional plug on a chain, and if there isn't a hole in the sink to fix it, use a longer chain and attatch it to the nearest available flat surface. I have never cared much for Pop up plugs which never seem to last very long, and they take ages to drain. I can never understand why designers think it is a good idea to replace a well proven system with something that is designed to fail.

 

So they can sell more. Cynical moi? ?

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I've got the same basins at home and on the boat. At home we have a flip over plug and on the boat a traditional plug-on-a-chain with a short length of chain. The flip over plug is fine buy will jam shut if any grit gets into it and requires maximum force to open it and it's more difficult to clean the grating because you can't remove the plug. The plug with the chain has nowhere to fix a chain so has a short three inch length to allow it to be pulled out but otherwise cam be found knocking about in the basin or on the counter. One day it will go missing. I'd have preferred to have the flippy plug on the boat but there was no room for the basin waste fitting it came with.

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I hardly think a basin waste of any type  is going to break the bank  . A rotating waste will cost a tenner as opposed to half that for an ordinary plug waste. The choice  is a matter of personal preference. A flip waste will not easily fit on my boat sink so the old fashioned plug remains in use.

 

I still have  a sink at home with a pop up waste that is operated by rods and it remains in use after  28 years  but has never fully sealed .

 

The rotating waste in my home bathroom of more recent origin does however make a good seal. I think these rotating wastes are intended  for a wash basin as opposed to a kitchen sink.

 

I believe  captive wastes may originally have been developed  to solve the issue of people stealing the plugs from publicly accessible wash basins .

 

 

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14 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I hardly think a basin waste of any type  is going to break the bank  . A rotating waste will cost a tenner as opposed to half that for an ordinary plug waste.

 

Yep, typical costs for anything other than a basic type from Screwfix of a DIY shed is £12 to £15.  My qery is not abot money saving, it's about trying to avoid doing the same thing three times over!

 

The trouble is the DIY sheds I looked in today (Wickes & Homebase) have shelf space for several types, almost all out of stock!

What I did discover is that there is nothing like a standard depth on the threaded pipe, and as I know I was quite limited on the install, I need to measure up what I have, and make sure any replacement will fit.

 

I also noted that an unwrapped pop-up type I found in Homebase it was possible to easily extract the pop up mechanism.  So when at the boat, I'll examine mine again, because it didn't seem to look easy to dismantle!

:off_topic: Anybody know what's going on with Homebase?  Our local on rebranded to Bunnings Warehouse not long back, but has quickly reverted to Homebase.  Inside it is still firmly "Bunnings Warehouse" though, everything in long aisles of tall racks.  However the Homebase I was in in Northampton the other day is just like Homebase always was, (including expensve!), and not at all like Bunnings Warehouse.  I know the Bunnings thing has been a marketing disaster that has not worked well in the UK, and thought Homebase were in great trouble as a brand, but does anybody know the current story, please?

Edited by alan_fincher
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3 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

:off_topic: Anybody know what's going on with Homebase?  Our local on rebranded to Bunnings Warehouse not long back, but has quickly reverted to Homebase.  Inside it is still firmly "Bunnings Warehouse" though, everything in long aisles of tall racks.  However the Homebase I was in in Northampton the other day is just like Homebase always was, (including expensve!), and not at all like Bunnings Warehouse.  I know the Bunnings thing has been a marketing disaster that has not worked well in the UK, and thought Homebase were in great trouble as a brand, but does anybody know the current story, please?

I am a bit surprised about Bunnings not making go of it over here, they are probably the biggest DIY chain in Australia and their stores are huge. Prices are quite good as well.

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4 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

I am a bit surprised about Bunnings not making go of it over here, they are probably the biggest DIY chain in Australia and their stores are huge. Prices are quite good as well.

 

From this article......

 

Quote

“Homebase is undoubtedly the most disastrous retail acquisition in the UK ever,” says GlobalData’s retail analyst, Patrick O’Brien. “I can’t think of a worse one that has made these kinds of losses so quickly.

 

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23 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

We have recently fitted a new wash basin on "Flamingo", and the waste that came with it was of the spring loaded "pop up" variety - it all seemed very slick at first.

However after very little use, it now totally refuses to "pop down".  It has had little opportunity for the mechanism to get blocked by anything, but without fully removing it and all the fairly tightly fitted plumbing I can't say what has gone wrong.

I'm tempted to replace it, and the options, it seems, are....

 

1) Another "pop up" one, (there are multiple types - some fit into the hole, others incorporate a dome over it, and the actual seal is just a bit of flexible plastic).

2) The "flip over" type

3) Good old fashioned hole with a removable plug.

We don't have an option 4 of something operated by a lever and rods, as there is no provision for this on either the basin or taps.

If we go for a removable plug the basin lacks anything to attach a "chain" to, so the plug would need to be kept loose  not ideal really.

Cath says that people have suggested to her that the "flip over" type area  nightmare, and to be avoided, but she can't remember any reasons given.

So what do people have, and how well has it worked?  What are the issues with anything you now have, or have tried in the past?

Having paid for one, and gone through the efforts of fitting it, I want to try to ensure the cost and effort of replacing it results in something functional and reliable.

Thanks.

 

Mine is the flip over type been in 6yrs no problem.

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On 22/09/2018 at 14:25, alan_fincher said:

 

From this article......

 

 

Bunnings/Homebase was sold to "restructuring specialist" Hilco for £1 earlier this year with all the Bunnings branded stores reverting to Homebase.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/25/bunnings-pulls-out-of-britain-after-1bn-plus-disaster

Edited by David Mack
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