Noticed a musty smell lately in our kitchen and after removing the back of a cupboard found this!

It's the cold water pipe for the kitchen and is leaking rather badly. The whole tap seems to be leaking including from behind the round piece between the tap and the pipe. Problem is I've never seen any pipework like this. Obviously I'd like to replace the whole lot but the pipe is coming out from the concrete floor, so I need to know if it's possible to replace just the tap.

The best news is I've found the cold water supply for the rest of the house and it's exactly the same but even harder to get to.

Any advice would be gratefully received

Looks like a valve sweated into a lead pipe – have a similar arrangement in my kitchen. When the tap went wrong, the plumber took the core out of the tap and replaced with a blanking plate to stop the leak and fitted a new tap above it allowing the lead into the rest of the house to be replaced.

Best not to bu&&er about with the lead pipework from the wall to the tap as if it splits it'll be a right faff to fix it.

If the leak is around the spindle of the tap you might be able to tighten it up using the nut that is furthest out from the pipe. Might being the operative word!

I would get a plumber in to sort it even tho I do most of my own plumbing – lead pipes are tricky

Cheers I'll give that a go. Could do with fixing it myself cos I'm broke at the moment 🙁

I would only echo what TJ says – even plumbers are very limited in what they are allowed to do with lead these days, so be very cautious in what you attempt as if it goes wrong it could end costing £££'s to get it sorted whether you have the money or not (been there, have T-shirt etc etc….)

From what you describe the pipe may be failing, having experienced this it's not fun. Maybe run a new main feed from the house supply in plastic to replace it. A plumber will need to connect to the mains due to the lead piping. B&Q sell plastic water piping, not the blue stuff as that's usually used from the street to the stop-cock.

Well I've just nipped up the nut that TJ suggested and it seems to have sorted it for now. Thanks for the help

I'm surprised nobody has suggested getting the lead pipes replaced.

Being new to this plumbing lark I hadn't even realised it was lead pipe. I'll be having it replaced as soon as I can

Phew. glad that fixed it and the pipe didn't split

Me too 😯

You lucky bu&&er!!! 😉 Well done.

Ta. Think I'll stick to bottled water for a while 😕

http://www.southwestwater.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1607&searchkey=lead%20replacement

lead to plastic pipe fittings

Try here!

Cheers, I'll check them out