Reusing old taps used to be plain sailing, provided they had been refurbished and pressure tested, as this story about reclaimed taps in SalvoNEWS in 1994 testifies:
 
Repro taps at £49.99 go on sale at Texas Homecare complete with BS1010 valves to comfort the feint hearted erstwhile salvage buyer. BS1010 simply refers to the standard mechanism, but tested to Water Byelaws standards (1.5 times maximum pressure)
 
Some yards have testing equipment, but need encouragemenl to use il. Ask them when you buy. The Water Byelaws require all draw-off taps to be able to withstand water not exceeding 65°C but this is more a function of the tap washer, covered under BS3457.
 
All reclamation businesses are of course conversant with BS3457, but coy in discussing it with customers. Since all tap washers sold in the UK Comply with BS3457 you need have no worries about the tap washer itself. More likely will be a faulty or worn seating for the washer to wear against.
 
You could argue that it is better to melt all old taps down and reproduce the Edwardian range as Texas do. While the energy cost of melting a tap worth of brass in an induction furnace is only about 0.3 kWh, the energy costs of recovering, transporting, melting, tooling, packaging and distribution probably knock this up to 30kWh.
 
While over 100,000 reclaimed taps a year are sold, probably another million are junked. 3 gigawatts of taps? Still not convinced? Some yards do actually sell new repro taps. By buying from them at least the profits will be ploughed back into something else.
 
[Written by Thornton Kay, August 1994
Salvo has not got a copy of the new tap standard is BS EN 200:2008 (copies cost an unaffordable £204), but in 2005 a new body, Water Regulations Advisory Scheme (WRAS) was set up to check that new fittings complied with the regs, on behalf of manufacturers. The regs require single taps, when new, to pass the following tests:
1. Taps must not leak when subject to an internal hydraulic pressure of 20 bar ± 0.5 bar for a time of 60 ± 5 seconds.
2. Taps must turn off properly after a test of 200,000 cycles whilst being supplied with hot and cold water with the tap closed with an applied closing torque of 1.5 ± 0.15Nm, and opened again between 80-95 per cent. (The equivalent of 20 years use.)
3. The tap with the seat washer removed and not supplied with water is subject to a torque of 6 ± 1.0 Nm for a period of 5 minutes ± 30 seconds in both opening and closing positions and there must be no permanent deformation or loosening of any part of the valve.
4. A torque of 25 ± 1 Nm is applied to the backnut without slip, deformation or damage.
5. The washer must be replaceable.
6. Taps are inspected for possible mixtures of metals which might give rise to galvanic action (see BSI PD 'Commentary on corrosion at bimetallic contacts').
7. The air gap, or vertical distance from outlet bottom to spillover level of a domestic basin, sink or bath, must be 20mm for a 1/2inch tap, 25mm for a 3/4inch tap, and 3ins for a tap 1inch or more. Bigger gaps are needed for some commercial situations.
8. Taps made recently which may have kitemarks, or WRAS approval, are deemed to satisfy these provisions. Taps marked 'CR' are made from dezincification resistant brass.
 
The UK standard for taps, BS EN 200:2008, refers to BS8905 for sustainability and end of life criteria which is clear, and also coincides with the UK government's view, UK law and the EU Waste Framework Directive. The relevant part of BS8905 states:
 
B.5 End-of-life and reuse
Sustainable design should take into account what is going to happen to a product at the end-of-life. This is driven by government, economics and stakeholders. For a product development there should be a strategy for managing the cost-effective treatment of the product at the end-of-life. This should influence both the design and the materials that are used in the product. How these materials are reused, recovered or disposed of should be aligned to the waste hierarchy. The first level of end-of-life should be to reuse or remanufacture the product itself; following that, the product should be designed for disassembly to allow reuse or recycling of the components/materials contained in that product; and the last resort should be to ensure that the appropriate waste disposal route is chosen.
Thornton Kay was a member of the BS8905 drafting committee at BSI.
 
In the intervening twenty years since I first wrote about regulations and the reuse of taps, manufacturers and industry have continued to create and enforce regulations which are to their commercial benefit and to the detriment of sensible reuse.
 
More taps are thrown away now than 20 years ago, and I suspect that the average life of a brass tap has now dropped from 70 years to 20 years.
 
There is no consumer or trade committee dedicated to the reuse of old taps.
 
At the Salvo Fair held in 1997 an antique bathroom meeting took place to discuss defining terms for the different processes of bath re-enamelling or resurfacing, tap renovation, water byelaws, public relations and standards. Present were Thornton Kay, Colin Elderfield, Tony Swayne, Drummond Shaw, Trevor and Uta Garrard, Chris Baylis, Stephen Ward, Tim Deutsch and Simon Kirby - all of whom were Salvo Code members.
 
On taps it was agreed that full refurbishment was necessary, although some argued that dezincification rendered some otherwise reusable taps worthless. Others said not, but that all taps could be economically refurbished. All agreed that testing was vital, although tests did vary. Plumbers were seen as a major problem, often failing to flush systems which resulted in swarf affecting the washer seating and seal. All said that women turn off taps too hard. All said that modern reproduction taps were inferior to old ones. Some said that early taps contain more copper and less zinc, antimony and tin which gave a longer-lasting seat.
 
At the meeting it was agreed that an antique bathroom technical committee should be formed consisting of Colin Elderfield (an apprenticed trained plumber of 40 years), Stephen Ward (an associate of the Institute of Plumbers) and John Harnaby (secretary of the Institute of Plumbing and antique bathroom buff). The committee agreed to prepare a draft set of regulations for the refurbishment and fitting of antique bathroom fittings, and an assessment of the Water Byelaws 'separating the health and economy rules from arbitrary rules inspired by manufacturers to encourage people to throw away perfectly good old fittings in favour of new ones'. This did not happen, but interestingly, Drummond Shaw and Simon Kirby, of Drummonds and Thomas Crapper respectively, both went on to start businesses manufacturing very high quality sanitaryware and reproduction brass taps - both ditching the old turndown washer system in favour of the new-fangled ceramic disc technology. Drummonds taps are approved by WRAS and can be seen in the new Drummonds showroom recently opened in the Kings Road, Chelsea.