Specifying Vandal Resistant Fittings

The failure mode is theft, not wear

In a domestic bathroom an aerator is replaced when it blocks. In a school or a station it disappears, because a standard shell has flats on it and comes out with a coin and a little patience.

When it goes, two things go with it. The flow rate the building was specified around is gone, and the tap now throws a solid column into the basin and splashes. Both are usually discovered long after the aerator was taken.

Hidden shells and vandal shells

A hidden shell sits flush inside the spout with nothing to grip. This range includes a hidden male M24 body whose flow rate is made to the customer's requirement, and a hidden basin mixer body on a 21.5*1 female thread specified for maximum lime resistance, no disassembly for cleaning, a very low noise level and stream quality maintained under difficult flow conditions.

A vandal shell is the same idea applied to a conventional body: the tamper and vandal resistant aerator on F22*1 takes cores at 2L, 4L, 6L, 8L and 9L, and the M24*1 male vandal-proof version offers an aerated flow with different cores available. One brass constant-flow body is also offered in a vandal version with key.

The keys are the whole specification

None of this works without the matching key, and the key is the part that gets left off the order. The service key in this range is specified for M22x1 or regular female, M24x1 or regular male with side flats, and M28x1 aerator threads. The kitchen mixer kit covers F22*1, M22*1 and M28*1.

Buy spares, and store them away from the site toolbox. A tamper-resistant washroom whose keys have been lost is a washroom your own team cannot service either — and the usual field fix is destructive.

Take the handle out of the equation

Where hygiene is also a concern, the one-touch aerators change the interaction rather than hardening it. One touch turns the water on, a second turns it off, so nobody touches a shared tap handle. The maker rates the male-thread version at 84% water saving and the aerated version at 48%.

The self-closing version shuts off automatically in 2 to 20 seconds and is rated at 87% water saving. Its anti-virus function was tested by SGS, and it self-rinses while washing to prevent second contact infection.

What to send with the enquiry

Thread size at the spout, the flow rate your site specification requires, and whether you want hidden or vandal shells. On these bodies the core carries the flow rate and the shell carries the security, so the two decisions are separate.

Add the number of service keys you want. It should be more than one per site.