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I have a leaking shower at home and decided to try and fix it today. When I opened the tap I found a small metal valve with no rubber on it at all. Instead it had a metal ridge around the edge. The seat has a corresponding ring so I assume it's supposed to be this way. Both hot and cold were the same.

It's smaller than the standard valves I have in other taps around the house. It might be the smaller standard that you see in basin sometimes but I didn't have a small one to compare.

I've never seen anything like this before.

What's it called? If there is no rubber that is degrading, why is it leaking? Will it be easy to buy a replacement at the hardware store?

Tap and Valve

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  • Could you find the vendor's name? It's not always that the valve itself is a specific type of valve, but more often a valve design (ie an implementation of a valve type, ie gate-valve, ball-valve) and the design is a vendor's exclusive patented design. I recommend trying to find the mfg's name somewhere and take it to a store carrying that vendor.
    – N8sBug
    Oct 4, 2015 at 10:03

2 Answers 2

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Just spent a day dealing with problem posted here. Appreciate OP might have fixed his problem given this is a few years old, for benefit of other users such as myself.

This is an AQUALOC valve. (looks like an Australian product).

The rubberless valve haven't been worn out, it is by design. The cap is plugged into the pipe with a rubber washer and the valve goes into the cap, where there's another rubber washer. If you peer into the hole you'll see a cap, it looked like a smaller pipe to me. It will move if you push it around. If so, pull it out and you'll get a standard sized cavity so that the normal 12 - 13mm valves should now fit.

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  • Thanks for following up @Jas. I ended up paying a plumber to come and look at it who just used a pair of pliers to rip the cap out of the pipe. - I could have done it my self. He really made a mess of it.
    – Jay Kyburz
    Oct 9, 2017 at 22:46
  • I'd consider that tuition fee. :) I got the advise from guy at Bunnings, he said it is moving, it is loose, pull it out. He wasn't aware what it was either. One of the cap took me a while to get out as you have to dislodge it and clear the opening at the same time. I guess this was put in by the previous plumber years ago when the dripping won't stop after coming back twice. I've replaced with a pair of ceramic tap now.
    – Jas
    Oct 11, 2017 at 0:01
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Looks like the rubber seals are completely gone. Replace the rubber seals, and re- dress the brass seats, so they no longer chew up the rubber seals.

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  • Hello yet again. This is a good answer; keep 'em coming!
    – Daniel Griscom
    Sep 2, 2016 at 14:34
  • Nope. The valve in the picture is part of an Aqualoc valve as mentioned before.
    – Akira Yamamoto
    Mar 2 at 12:46

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