> Stop using taps that need washers. All the taps in my house (in Norway) are over thirty years old and none of them drip. The reason is simply that they use a

> Stop using taps that need washers. All the taps in my house (in Norway) are over thirty years old and none of them drip. The reason is simply that they use a cartridge with ceramic mating surfaces. Cartridges (ceramic or otherwise) fail for a variety of reason. Gaskets come in some fairly standard sizes and cost a few pennies to replace. Cartridges typically cost $20-$40 each, are quite non-standard even from a single manufacturer, and some manufacturers will require special tools to remove/install their cartridges. Plus a cartridge will still typically have gaskets that can fail (e.g. I recently had a diverter valve that was part of a cartridge leak and flood the under-sink area).