When you have a house with a large garden or a patio area, having an outdoor tap is an absolute must. Even if you’ve got a smaller garden with potted plants, it can be a great convenience to have an outside tap so you can water your plants more easily and wash your pathways. 

But if you don’t have an outside tap already, you need to consider where you’ll have one put, what type of tap you want and how much it will all cost including the labour costs. We’ll have a look at each of these points so you’re prepared to get your outdoor tap and can shop around for the best price. 

Who Can Fit an Outdoor Tap?

Most outdoor taps are relatively simple to install as they can be attached to a nearby main water pipe, especially if they’re close to a kitchen wall. But in most cases, you’ll need a plumber to fit an outdoor tap as they have the experience and knowledge to see where your closest water sources are and what’s the best way to attach your outdoor tap. 

When you contact a plumbing business for a quote, they should be able to give you a rough quote over the phone based on the type of tap you need and labour costs for the installation, but once they see the property, where the tap will go according to your design ideas or the most convenient location, they’ll be able to give you a more accurate price for the work. 

Can You Fit an Outdoor Tap Yourself?

If you’ve got a bit of plumbing know-how or simply want a cheaper way of getting an outdoor tap and don’t mind a bit of DIY, it can be tempting to fit an outdoor tap yourself. While you can fit an outdoor tap yourself if the main water pipe is close to where you’ll fit the tap as you won’t need so many materials and the job at hand is much simpler than finding a surface or buried supply pipe, if you don’t have any experience in plumbing, it’s best to get a professional to fit your tap. 

A professional will have the experience needed to assess the space and see where the water access points are to fit your outdoor tap in the most convenient location and fit the tap with no trouble. By doing it yourself, you’re risking causing damage to your water pipes or starting a leak that you might not be equipped to fix. The overall cost of fitting an outside tap is not much in most cases, so it’s better to get it done right than risk causing any problems. 

What Type of Outdoor Tap Do You Need?

Most outside taps are the same, however, there are a couple of options for convenience and style. 

Outdoor taps include:

• Common garden tap
• Lever garden tap
• Vintage garden tap

Common garden taps are the most widely used as they’re simple so you can fill up a watering can, but they’re also designed to have hoses or pressure washers attached to them so you can easily water and clean your garden. They’re also the cheapest, usually between £6 and £10 for the tap itself. You’ll pay more for pipes and other materials used when you have each garden tap fitted. 

A lever tap is very similar to a common garden tap as you can attach hoses or pressure washers as needed. The only difference is that rather than having to turn the top to get the water and shut it off, you have an easy lever to flip up and down. 

If you’re replacing your outside tap and are tired of having to turn a stiff tap or asking for someone’s help, a lever tap is a great option as they’re much easier to use. Lever taps can cost around £20 on average. 

Vintage taps are a much more stylistic option as they’re very pretty and may fit with your old-fashioned garden theme or look pretty on an old house, but they’re less practical for those with large gardens. They don’t have grooves to attach a hose or pressure washer like the other types of outside tap, so they’re simply for filling up a watering can or rinsing off muddy wellies. Vintage garden taps can cost from £25-35.

You can fit outdoor taps in most points on your outside walls, however, some places are much easier than others. 

The main concern when fitting an outside tap is where the nearest water pipe is so that the tap can be connected. So if your kitchen is at the back of your house facing the garden, fitting an outdoor tap against the back of the kitchen wall is a breeze for a professional plumber. 

But if you don’t have any nearby pipes at the back of your house, or you want your outside tap to be in a different place to make it easier to water the garden or reach the patio to be pressure washed, then the installation will still be possible, but it will be a bit more complicated and more expensive. 

How Much Does it Cost to Fit an Outdoor Tap?

There are three main components that make up the cost of fitting an outdoor tap:

• The price of the tap
• The price of the extra materials such as pipes
• The labour costs

When you get a quote from a plumbing company, they’ll usually give you the overall cost including each of these individual costs, so make sure you specify what kind of tap you’d like installed so they can factor that in. 

Fitting an outside tap can cost between £80 and £1000 as there are many variants, from the materials needed and the number of hours needed for the installation. However, on average, fitting an outside tap will cost around £150. 

For a simple fitting of a common garden tap on a wall close to a main water supply, you can expect to pay around £8 for the tap, £20 for the materials and around £100 for the labour costs for the plumber, although this can vary. 

For a more complicated fitting of an outdoor tap at the bottom of your garden away from the main water supply and with a buried supply pipe to prevent it from freezing, you can expect to pay around £1000 for the tap, the materials and the labour costs as this will take a lot longer and being more physically demanding. 

Shop around for the best quotes and see which plumber offers the best price paired with the best knowledge so you can rest assured you’re getting the job done right. 

How Long Does it Take to Fit an Outdoor Tap?

Fitting an outdoor tap can take from half a day, i.e. a few hours, up to 3 or 4 days, depending on the complexity of the job. Simple fittings near a main water supply will just take a few hours for an experienced plumber, but laying new pipes through your garden will take a few days and potentially a couple of people to dig the channel and fit the tap. 

The longer it takes to fit the outside tap, the more expensive it will be as plumbers generally charge from £150 to £300 per day. Plus, if the work requires more than one person, you’ll be charged more for each person’s work. 

NJT Plumbing and Heating Ltd – Plumbers You Can Trust!

Located near Cullompton in the South West, NJT Plumbing & Heating Ltd has over 25 years of experience in plumbing work with a large team of qualified and knowledgeable engineers ready to help you with your plumbing and heating needs, whatever the job or industry. 

Some of our other services include bathroom installations and underfloor heating and we proudly work with oil, gas, solid fuel and renewable energies, training each of our employees in the latest technologies and changes in the industry so we have the most up-to-date knowledge in the business. 

Have a look at some of our work in our gallery, read our testimonials from our happy customers, or simply contact us today to get a quote on your job.