Home DIY

Upper red arrow appears to show clear silicone sealant. This has very poor unprimed adhesion to plastics & rubbers.
See if you can remove all the sealant.
The large black plastic nut should seal the rubber washer with not much more than (strong) finger tightness.

The lower red arrow seems to show a crossthreaded large white plastic nut.
Undoing it and gently correctly seating it should allow it to engage on a couple more threads.

It shouldn’t be a difficult fix for you to find the leak if you’re comfortable taking it apart, but if it’s a poor install then as you say get it sorted for free.

You’ll need a big enough adjustable to get it apart and a joint sealant and silicone sealant to get it all back together.

I’d check the right type of waste was used for your sink - there’s slotted and un-
slotted, the former will leak for fun if it doesn’t match your overflow. And check that the right size gasket was used.

There’s nothing complex there. Both joins you point too need to be slathered in Plumbers Mait or preferably LSX to make them watertight.

Get a different plumber.

Top one doesn't look square to the sink and bottom one looks cross-threaded but that could be the photo angle. I'd reseat the bottom one at least.
Is that water or some kind of goop all over everything?

In my experience (4 sinks, more than 4 attempts to seal!), sealant isn't required if everything is new and installed well but PTFE tape helps on plastic/metal interfaces. That does not look installed well! Your isolator valve is half shut too if you didn't do that!

Both joins you point too need to be slathered in Plumbers Mait or preferably LSX to make them watertight.

Would you slather the threads then do them up or try and seal the top of the nut afterwards? I've not had too much success with LSX but people seem to swear by it.

Thanks all. Mostly water all over that but there is some silicone goop.

I'm pretty sure the bottom one is not actually cross threaded, agree it looks at an odd angle though.

I turned the isolator as the water pressure was higher than needed.

Will see what I can do before the plumber gets here

Always does the trick for me. Lsx on the threads, tighten by hand and a notch or two with a wrench - then make a circular sausage from plumbers mait to form a barrier around the exterior of the join - above the plastic nut (not on it). That way any water that does make it to the LSX (it won’t) can’t go back up and over the rim of the nut.

PTFE tape would work the same as LSX true, I prefer working with the gel than tape but either is fine really.

Interesting, thanks. I've not heard of plumbers mait before but I got most of my plumbing tips from the fitters at work who make steam/solvent pipework, so their suggestion was stag paste!

Sometime the advice on here is meh imo.

Silicons from real word experience is fine on stuff like this, and Id say personally a poster saying it should be just tighter than finger is nonsense needs to be tighter than that. It needs tightened but not horsed.

Also slathering joints in paste after its fitted, if its gonna leak without paste it'll leak with paste and is just extra mess. Although I will say thats a thing that plumbers seem to be taught from working.

The main issue with most of this waste stuff and lot of taps and that is that its cheap chinese crap.

I've not heard of plumbers mait before

It's useful stuff, but the temptation can be to use it to temporarily bodge shoddy work so it at least works/doesn't drip. Don't ask me how I know this...

I'm pretty sure the bottom one is not actually cross threaded

Based on the photo I'm absolutely 100% sure it is. Just count the threads visible left and right sides.

Don’t agree with that, that’s like saying if a boat with a hole will leak then a boat with a repaired hole will leak.

Water + gravity + brittle plastic squashed against mass mass produced, poorly built metal thread = good chance of leaks.

Plenty of effectively impenetrable chemical compounds out there capable of filling spaces we can’t see or get to.

Urgh....makes me a bit mad just looking at it.

This. Or frankly just DIY.

Looks like the bottom one is cross threaded because the down pipe in the background may be too long, hence putting the trap on an angle. If it's fixed at the bottom, I would make sure your plumber shortens it slightly when you get him back.

Yep I think this is at the heart of it. Pipe forces the whole thing to be -very slightly- at an angle

Yeah, the second step strikes me as a bit redundant tbh. The seal that matters is the joint itself.

What's going to be the best / easiest /cheapest plug hole set up for a kids plastic sand pit.

It always fills with water so want to drill a hole and stick In a plug for easy draining

Anyone tried slaking their own lime putty from quick lime?

Only sounds moderately dangerous. I think hot-lime mixing, where you add the aggregate at the same time is the really crazy one.

I have quite a lot of garden wall pointing to in the near future and wondered if I could save myself a few quid by making my own. The quicklime doesn't seem much cheaper than NHL2 though, so maybe that's the route to go.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/cabin-hook-white-150mm/66602

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Looks like it should do the job, cheers

I'll assume you don't have wind where you live.

Silicons from real word experience is fine on stuff like this

From my real world experience I'd say PTFE tape > silicone but I agree about slathering joints in anything.

The main issue with this particular waste seems to be that it's not screwed on straight!

@lemonade I would say @withered_preacher is right, get a different plumber. I could do a lot better than that myself and my plumbing experience is pretty limited...

Just ordered one of these https://www.toolstation.com/vivanco-dual-arm-tilt-swing-tv-wall-mount-bracket/p32486 to mount the telly (32") onto the wall in the lounge.

Most of the time the telly will be swung out a bit so we can watch it easily, but it'd be nice to be able to push it back against the wall if it's not needed. The mount of movement it gives should easily be enough for a 32" TV.

Given that it won't come with fixings, what are the best options for mounting it onto a brick wall (the wall is one of the external walls if that makes a difference, no reason to think it is anything but normal brick)?

Yeah, I just did a laundry sink hook up in our basement - 3rd time ever attempting something like this, having to adapt two standards and pipes that were the same standard 30+ years apart (not same). Mine doesn't leak.