| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| gil |
water supply probs - sorted, many many thanksHave searched for previous threads on this toipic, as I am sure there was at least one. Can't find.HELP ! There was an unexpected interruption to the local water supply last night / this morning, that we were all unaware of till this morning. As a result, my hot tank is pretty empty. Cold water supply now restored. Cold water is flowing well out of basin/sink taps on ground floor. And from basin taps on first floor None from other taps on first floor. Nothing coming out of any of the hot taps at all. Got them all turned on full blast. Anything I should do, other than wait for the water to wend its merry way upwards ? |
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| Northern_Lad |
How fast is the water coming out of the taps it is? | ||||
| gil |
Pretty fast, perhaps not quite full pressure, but almost.
There was none in the upstairs basin taps before, so something is improving |
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| Behemoth |
Is the 'hot tank' filling? | ||||
| gil |
Trip to attic follows shortly... | ||||
| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
Is hot tank turned off at the mains so its not heating up empty | ||||
| gil |
Hot tank almost empty, not filling.
I'm assuming the hot tank is in the attic ? [amazing how one takes these things for granted - what if that's not the hot tank ?] Upstairs basin taps no longer running. |
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| gil |
@ Mrs F - I've not got the hot water heating turned on, if that's what you meant | ||||
| gil |
OK, hot tank is downstairs (the lagged one that holds the CH water). No sound of water running into it.
Cold tank must be the unlagged one in the attic, which is almost empty. Are the downstairs cold taps filling direct from the mains rather than via the tank ? Is this when I do the 'putting my hand over the tap and turning it full on' thing ? |
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| Behemoth |
A couple of shots in the dark.
The hot tank has a safety cut off if flow/pressure drops to avoid expolsion. Possible remedy is to reset something or refer to the manual. Header tank? Is this filling properly? Are all the cold taps fed from the mains or some from a tank in the attic? |
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| marigold |
I don't know much about these things, but it's usually a header tank in the attic and the hot water tank is on the first floor (unless you have a combi boiler in which case you shouldn't need either header tank or hot water tank). If the system isn't filling with all taps open, why not try closing them? That's the only thing I can think of, in my ignorance! | ||||
| marigold |
My guess is that all the mains water is running out of your downstairs cold taps and can't get to the header tank. Close them and see what happens, |
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| Behemoth |
Aha! Downstairs are probablt mains fed so they are working. Check the ballcock in the attic tank, is it working properly? I think this is also linked to the hot tank but I'm not a plumber. |
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| gil |
Cold water / header tank in attic not filling at all. Ground floor cold taps prolly fed off mains then, hence water flow; but first floor ones fed off header tank, hence no water |
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| marigold |
AFAIK all cold taps should feed direct from the mains and but a hot water tank is usually fed by a header tank in the loft (at least with older CH systems). | ||||
| gil |
Have turned off all taps.
Cold water tank in attic now filling. Should this sort it ? Water level was nowhere near ballcock, but this was moving freely, so should kick in as water level rises. Though I'll check. |
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| marigold |
Sounds promising! Might be worth opening hot taps a little bit so air can come out as the system fills.
Can you hear water trickling down into the hot water tank? |
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| gil |
All the hot taps, or just a selection ? Ground/ first floor ? Cold tank is still filling, though it has reached the ballcock level now; no sound of water running to hot tank yet. |
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| marigold |
All, I guess - pipes now have air in them instead of water, so air must come out as water goes in...
Gotta go now, hope it's OK. |
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| gil |
Thanks for your help, Marigold. 
Water now coming out of all cold taps, but none from hot ones, except a vague trickle in the pantry sink. Now what to do ? I really need to get this sorted. There does not appear to be a reset button on the hot tank. It's very basic. |
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| Behemoth |
Give it time to fill and heat.
Have a cup of tea. |
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| gil |
If it's well lagged, would I hear it fill ?
Cold tank filling reverberates in attic, but hot tank maybe more silent ? Time for a cuppa. Good idea, Behemoth. Should I turn the hot taps off ? There's no heating of water going on, as it is summer, and will only happen if I turn on the immersion, or run the Rayburn. |
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| Behemoth |
Yes turn the hot taps off.
A biscuit is also a good idea at this point. |
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| gil |
Hot taps off. Why would I need a biscuit at this point ? You've got me worried now. |
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| Behemoth |
The biscuit has taken your mind off the plumbing. | ||||
| marigold |
I'm back! How's it going? | ||||
| Shane |
I'm a bit late to this thread...
Turn off any taps that have water coming out of them. The purpose of turning on taps is to bleed the air out of the system up to that tap. Once the tap is flowing water, the air local to that tap is gone. Leaving all taps turned on at a lower elevation means that the system pressure won't be sufficient (in your case, at least) to push the water up to the next level. If this was to happen again, I'd open all the cold taps (not the hot ones) as they should all be fed off the mains. This is the first system you want to bleed. As each tap starts spouting water at the right sort of flow, turn it off. Once they are all bled and turned off, you should notice the cold tank filling. Once the ballcock in that has closed, you need to work out how to recharge the hot water system. Once the hot water tank is filled, you can start opening up the various taps one at a time. Wait until a tap is running and close it before moving on to the next one. Depending on where they are in relation to the hot water tank, the air will either bleed out of the tap or back up to the tank and out of that, so you'll need to make sure that the tank is topping up as it should be. Once you've bled the system through all the taps, you can worry about bleeding any radiators that run off the same system. A plumber will probably chip in at this point and tell me I'm talking carp, but that's what I'd do. |
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| gil |
Still no water out of any hot taps.
Just back in from mowing to take my mind off it. Now what ? |
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| Shane |
Has the hot water tank got any water in it?
Try cracking open one of the hot water taps on the ground floor (don't open it too far, or you won't hear the air coming out). If it hisses, there is at least pressure in the system, implying a head of water somewhere. One open one tap at a time, otherwise you may find you can build up enough pressure in the system to start moving water around. |
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| gil |
cheers, Shane. The above is where I'm up to. So one hot tap at a time, then. I'd not factored in the bleeding radiators. 
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| Shane |
Yep - see my edited post above this one.
Assuming it's finally warmed up a bit where you are you can probably put that on the "not terribly urgent" list 
You'll probably find random pockets of air gurgling out of the system over the next couple of days, anyway - especially at taps that you don't use very often. Probably an idea to open the highest cold water tap in the house every now and then just to make sure that any air that works it way up is bled. |
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| gil |
Dunno. Sorry to be dense, but it is a completely enclosed, polystyrene-lagged cylinder, I think ????? |
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| marigold |
Ah Shane, you put it so much better than me  .
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| gil |
Somewhere there's a thread about my travails bleeding the rads one cold Xmas. 
Right, back to your suggestions.. |
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| Shane |
See the second bit I added to that post - if you've got all the hot water taps open, not much might happen. You could always try the hot water system the other way round. check that the heating pump header tank is full (should be a small tank in the attic somewhere). If it is, turn the heating on to stir things up a bit. Try bleeding a couple of rads when the pumps running, but turn off the heating pretty quickly if either a) no air or water comes out (i.e. pump isn't generating any pressure, implying it's not pumping any water) or b) the pump continuously makes a racket (as opposed to complaining now and then when a bit of air hits it) as either could knacker the pump. If the radiators bleed okay and show that there's pressure in the system, try each hot tap in turn until you get one that bleeds. |
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| Shane |
Oh - our cisterns don't always refill on their own when they are completely empty. The only cure I've found is to take the top off the cistern, fill it up with a bucket and then flush it. That's always cured it, although I had to do it three times on one occasion.
I've no idea why - I'm guessing that it needed the water leaving in a hurry to draw trapped air out of the local highpoint in the piping. |
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| gil |
There is no hissing when I turn a hot tap on (tried both cloakroom and pantry). Nothing came out of cloakroom tap, some water from pantry hot tap, then back to a trickle. | ||||
| Shane |
Persist. Try every hot tap / shower in the house, one at a time. Then try again. Once the system's completely draining it can be a bitch to get it filled again.
Have you checked the expansion tank? |
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| gil |
I need to find the expansion tank, and the heating header tank first
Will try some more taps too. Just open them one at a time and leave them open ? Best to start upstairs or down ? Found a small tank [the heating header tank ?] in the attic, above the level of the cold tank. It is full. Doing the tap thing now. |
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| sean |
Noo, only one open at a time. | ||||
| Shane |
What you've got at the moment is a system full of air with no pressure in it. You only get pressure once the water's in there, but you need some pressure to start pushing air out, so it's a bit chicken and egg and you need do things slowly. Opening too many taps at once means that you can't build up enough pressure to start moving things, hence the one-tap-at-a-time thing. With a bit of luck, you'll find the one hot water user in the house that will get things moving. Might not be on the first whip round, but you should find it eventually. It's different from the cold water system, where the pressure comes from an external source (the mains). |
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| gil |
BTW, just to complicate (or not), many of the taps are mixer taps (baths, pantry, kitchen)
ISTR doing some sort of thing involving holding my hand tightly over the tap and turning on taps, when I had another water-related thing (airlocks, so same as this ?) |
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| marigold |
Does she need to ensure that there's water in all the possible loft tanks (if there happens to be more than one ) to prevent air escaping via the highest point? And possibly block up any overflow outlet temporarily? Possibly stupid questions, but maybe worth making a twerp of myself asking them .
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| Shane |
Blocking up overflows isn't necessary - in fact, I'd advise against, because a hot water system that fills with cold water and then heats up might well need its overflow.
Holding hands over taps is a new one - it's effectively turning off that one tap. Much better to turn them all off and open them one at a time. With mixer taps, you should find that with the handle all the way to the cold side you get water coming out, and with it all the way to the hot side you get nothing. Just open them one at a time with the handle all the way to the hot side, otherwise any low pressure air in the hot water system will struggle to get out. You can try tying the ball cock on the expansion tank up so that the valve's closed if you're really getting nowhere (assuming the tank's empty). You need to get the system generating some sort of pressure, even if it's tiny and you may need to go to those sort of lengths to do it. Then try shocking the system by rapidly opening and closing a mixer tap (on hot) a few times. |
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| gil |
Ah, my mixer taps ain't modern.
Two taps, one spout, is what I meant. Makes no difference, as far as I can tell, which side the spout points. It's just the hot tap I'm turning on. |
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| gil |
There is plenty f water in both the attic tanks that I can see. I don't think there are any others, though you never know in this house. |
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| marigold |
I only meant block the overflow temporarily if it was likely that air could be getting out at a point higher than the header tank. Just until there's enough pressure in the system to get water flowing into it. | ||||
| Shane |
Correct - make sure that the cold tap is off, otherwise you won't get any air out of the hot tap. |
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| gil |
Here's that Xmas thread - and the mixer tap trick. Off to try it, since pantry hot tap is the one producing most gurgling in the pipes.
Gil's Xmas woes |
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| Shane |
The overflow won't be connected to the system - it comes off the tank at a point higher than the normal water level. Blocking it won't achieve anything except a wet house if the ballcock doesn't close. |
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| Shane |
Gurgling is good - it means that things are moving. Keep it open until either a) the gurgling stops or b) water comes out. Then try another tap. If a) wait until either a) or b) happen and then go back to the first tap. |
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| marigold |
OK, , I think I had a vague notion that there might be an overflow into one of the tanks that didn't actually go outside the house (and which might be letting air out of the system at an unhelpful point).
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| Shane |
Ah - okay. It looks like the hand-over-the-end trick is intended to force a bit of water into the hot water system. When you remove your hand, the water presumably comes back out again, creating a syphon effect that should hopefully get stuff on the move. That's what I'm guessing, anyway. |
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| gil |
At last ! Hot water finally running.
Took a long time, though. Thanks for your help and patience, everyone |
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| marigold |
Excellent! Well done . You must be mightily relieved! And now you know what to do if it ever happens again...
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| Shane |
Good stuff - patience is the name of the game when you're trying to refill your hot water system! |
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| Gervase |
The hand over the mixer creates the same effect as hooking a short length of hose from the cold to the hot tap at the lowest point in the system - it blasts out airlocks and backfills the system. It's what I was going to suggest after arriving late, but gil's already got it sorted. |