The ‘salle de bain’ of my life

Having replaced the syphon, drop valve or fill valve in many toilets over many years I can say with some authority that these things are horrible.

795819_R_Z001

The reasons are twofold:
Firstly they are often what I call ‘hard-plumbed’ into position. In the other words they end up where necessary on the end of extremely rigid 15mm copper tubing usually having capillary (sweated) joints.
Any toilet cistern replacement/repair that is called for is unlikely to position the inlet back to this exact location on reassembly so the chances this nut will connect properly are slim. Invariably, just the tiniest misalignment will cause the nut to cross-thread resulting in a leak or worse still the stripping of the weak plastic thread on the inlet valve.
Secondly these things contain a fibre washer as the means to seal. The fibre washer is a comprehensively ill-conceived idea because they readily disintegrate on disassembly requiring a new one. But they are made from what looks like compressed cardboard which is not known for its sealing qualities.
My advice and usual technique is ditch this connection and go for a flex connector with a valve like this.
37233
These seal reliably using rubber inside the tap connector part and either the compression or push-fit connection onto the existing pipework work is easy.

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