Hi doitall,
Firstly, I did try to get this info to you yesterday as promised but events consipered against me, so apologies for that. Also, exhaustion induced delerium meant that in my last post I forgot to refer you to an earlier topic I raised which is now overlapping this one... didn't intend to duplicate in anyway, as this new topic was meant to get a general consensus on the neccessity or not of PRVs in this context (which I had not been able to work out from other posts here or searching around on google) - I didn't intend to get into the problems in our place specifically but if you're interested I'm very happy to share!
//www.diynot.com/forums/plumbing/help-needed-loud-noises-upstairs-when-taps-on.335896/
Wondering if I should switch to the other topic for the extra details but will give a quick summary of the problems here and then follow popular opinion from those more experience than me on forum etiquette as to whether I shoudl merge...
So here goes!:
Background:
New Worcester High Flow 550cdi floor standing combi boiler installed and old gravity system decommissioned just over three months ago now. We had just bought the house but had not yet moved in. 4 bed house with bathroom and ensuite shower room. Had detailed discussions with the plumber in advance about what we wanted and the different options i.e. updating existing system with new boiler and cylinder or switching to combi - settled on the combi solution on his advice. We had full confidence given all our concerns were answered, and as we'd had the same recommendations from another plumber we'd had do an inspection and quote as part of the conveyancing process, but who was not local or available for the actual job.
Problems:
Starting following the installation...
A. The leaks as mentioned already (leaving out no. 5 from the list above as we now know it's not related to the install), all within the frist three weeks after install:
Leak 1: shower pump under bath exploded (had not been decommissioned), water ran down into kitchen.
Leak 2: join in legacy pipe feeding a basin in ensuite, began gradually seeping which was unnoticed for a while - chipboard cabinet completely swelled and broken and wall damp before I spotted and called same plumber. Fixed it, but said it was a coincidence.
Leak 3: shower dial starting dripping after use - water leaked through and destroyed partition wall behind shower into wardrobe (unfortunately sealant was pretty worn allowing this
). Stopped using it, wardrobe dired out, then shower starting dripping constantly despite not being used and we had to get emergency plumber to decommission it entirely until we can afford to redo the ensuite. Fully appreciate that this may be not be related but it's a coincidence if so (wardrobe had no signs of any water damage until new system and old owners said they used that shower everyday. Leak 4: stop cock under sink in downstairs toilet starting dripping and also ruined cabinet.
B: After we moved in we noticed a really loud 'jet engine' noise in one section of piping under the floor upstairs - noise is there when turning on the kitchen tap
(mixer), the bathroom sink tap (also a mixer and noise much louder when mixing...) but all other outlets including shower and also a filter tap also within the kitchen sink make no noise in that pipe. Based on the layout we established the same section of pipe feeds the bath taps and shower and then ends with the bathroom sink mixer - so it's odd that only the sink outlet causes the noise (bath is not a mixer).
Installer said he's never heard anything like it despite having done loads of combi conversions and is genuinely baffled. Turned down the mains as an experiment, worked for a day but then noise returned - not as loud but still really annoying and the pressure from mains was no good for shower so we concluded that was not a viable work around...Said we'd have to get the boards up to investigate the pipe, but as we've had the floors restored this is a last resort for us - especially as he fully admitted he hadn't a clue what it might be so would be a very damaging 'experiment'. So instead, as another experiment, he fitted the two pressure reducing valves on the rising cold and hot pipes as described already. Theory being that this might be more effective than turning down the mains as that simply reduced flow... He set PRVs based on trial/error to get pressure as low as possible while remaining acceptable - rising cold was set to just over 2bar and hot just under 2 as a result. That's how things are now, the noise is still very loud (enough to wake people in any of the rooms upstairs so we don't turn it on at night!). Should also mention that with certain outlets in use or the toilet flushed the pressure reducer on the rising cold dips to 1 or under 1 bar and makes a hissing noise for a few minutes.. Installer is only interested in getting the boards up now and wants to lay new pipes to replace those making the noise (at our cost) - unless there is something obviously amiss with them which can be instantly corrected/adjusted. I'd like to try anything else possible first that does not involve ripping up floor. That is frustrating him (understandably) and he also feels he's done enough to help us with what he now is convinced is a legacy piping issue (assumes this based on the PRVs not working). I'm keen to explore any other possibilities first and have sought two other opinions (he also got a mate around for another opinion who agreed with him that he'd never heard the like and it must be in the pipes). My second opinion (who dealt with the ensuite shower decommissioning) thought it would be worth checking the taps but then I couldn't get hold of him again to come back and do that. The third opinion said taps are totally unrelated and pointed out issues with the PRVs as described already. It's this last opinion that has prompted my post. He gave me the impression that not having fitted a PRV to the incoming mains before it tees was not going to work and in fact demonstrates that the installer doesn't really understand how they work therefore also casting doubt on other decisions made... also corroborated by him not having lagged the piping in the garage which was described as a 'schoolboy error'.
C. Radiators unbalanced (or something else which makes some blast heat and others luke warm or stone cold). We did test after initial install and all seemed fine but once weather got cold we noticed that one of the two rads in the living room was always cold, and other was sometimes cold (with experiments I determined it got warm only when the rad upstairs just before it in the pipe layout was off). At this point following research on here I chased the installer plumber to come and balance rads. They were good for a day or so then worse since, now more of the rads remain cold. Two rads were replaced during install, no valves on existing rads were replaced during install. Could it be that installing the PRVs as above is related to the unbalancing? I have also noticed that some of the rads hiss/fizz a bit.
D. Shower in bathroom squeals loudly when fully on, adjusting the flow up and down from the shower dial gets rid of it after a bit. This only happened once or twice in months until the ensuite shower was decommissioned a few weeks ago - since then it happens every time.
E. New thermostat is not working at all - though I believe it's simply faulty (acc.. to third opinion).
Thanks for reading, sorry it's a long post, told you I was longwinded
- but was worried that if I skipped anything it might confuse/mislead. Any advice or help is much appreciated. Also, if there is a way to contribute to this very handy resource I'm happy to!
