Most people take the house tap for granted. You turn it on and water comes out, but how does the house tap really work? The process is a simple one that is based on engineering principles which apply to all types of mechanical and plumbing systems.
How a Water Tap Works
As you pull on the tap or handle, a screw rises and pulls up a washer with it. The water then pours from the pipe and goes out of the spout. This is how you get the water to run so you can wash your hands or dishes with it. When you need to turn the tap off, you push the tap and the movement pushes the screw down on the pipe. When the pipe gets pushed down it cuts off the flow of water.
The tap also works to provide you with hot or cold water. The way that this works is that water goes from two separate water lines to the faucets. There is either a hot water faucet knob and a cold water faucet knob or there is a way to select either hot or cold water by turning a single handle one direction for hot and another for cold.
The hot water is supplied from the heat source which is the hot water heater. The way a tap works is elementary and standard. The same principle works for any tap in a house whether it is a bathroom faucet or a kitchen faucet.
Water taps in houses are built to control the pressure of water with the help of screws and levers. The pressure inside the water pipes is higher than the air outside the. The pressure works against the forces of gravity to make the water flow from the ground through the pipes and out of the tap.
Why Knowing How Taps Works is Useful
The principles of water taps are easy to understand. They are something that students can learn about in school or that plumbing apprentices learn on the job or during training. While they are relatively easy to grasp they are basic principles which translate into other more involved principles which can be applied in different ways.
Knowing how they work is useful to an average homeowner. If the faucet or tap needs a repair, it is possible to do it yourself because you know how all the parts come together to make things work.
