Hi all,
I'm trying to help out an old friend here. I won't go too deep into the circumstances here, but long story short through some unfortunate circumstances he's got himself into a bit of a pickle. His hot water cylinder (in a cupboard in his upstairs bedroom) is leaking where the cold feed pipe goes in the side. It's leaking so much that it's completely soaked the floor of the room and is doing a pretty good job of soaking the kitchen below. It's been like this for some time as far as I can tell.
Now the obvious thing to do would be to call a plumber sharpish to sort it out, but the house is a complete bomb site and TBH it would be better to simply drain the tank and get the house completely dried out before proceeding. Building works are likely to be required, and a serious refresh of the hot water and central heating system. He can carry on living without hot water for a while. Once the HW tank's drained I can bung up the pipe from the header tank so he's got cold water.
So, how to drain the cylinder? Yesterday I tried closing the valve on the cold water feed pipe from the header tank in the attic- this is the pipe that goes in to the tank at the bottom and which is leaking. The valve seems to be knackered. In any case it seems that merely turning this feed off will not empty the tank, merely reduce the pressure in the hot water system to effeticvely nil so the taps don't work. I also turned off the feed to the header tank and returned today to find it empty, but the hot water tank is still leaking and still feels full when you tap it.
There are three other connections to the tank- one at the top, this I guess is the vent although there are other pipes coming off it as well as the vent pipe to the loft. There's one at the bottom on the other side from the cold feed which appears to come from the boiler downstairs- this I guess is where the hot water comes in? And then there's a takeoff about two thirds of the way up, which I suppose is a hot water out feed.
TBH it's well past the stage where water damage is an issue, so if I could simply stop the tank filling the rest of the water could be allowed to drain away before the drying out procedure could begin.
So- where's the water getting into the tank from? Could it be coming up from the boiler from mains pressure? Or somewhere else?
I will try and take a picture and post it so it's a bit clearer. Any ideas in the mean time gratefully received.
I'm trying to help out an old friend here. I won't go too deep into the circumstances here, but long story short through some unfortunate circumstances he's got himself into a bit of a pickle. His hot water cylinder (in a cupboard in his upstairs bedroom) is leaking where the cold feed pipe goes in the side. It's leaking so much that it's completely soaked the floor of the room and is doing a pretty good job of soaking the kitchen below. It's been like this for some time as far as I can tell.
Now the obvious thing to do would be to call a plumber sharpish to sort it out, but the house is a complete bomb site and TBH it would be better to simply drain the tank and get the house completely dried out before proceeding. Building works are likely to be required, and a serious refresh of the hot water and central heating system. He can carry on living without hot water for a while. Once the HW tank's drained I can bung up the pipe from the header tank so he's got cold water.
So, how to drain the cylinder? Yesterday I tried closing the valve on the cold water feed pipe from the header tank in the attic- this is the pipe that goes in to the tank at the bottom and which is leaking. The valve seems to be knackered. In any case it seems that merely turning this feed off will not empty the tank, merely reduce the pressure in the hot water system to effeticvely nil so the taps don't work. I also turned off the feed to the header tank and returned today to find it empty, but the hot water tank is still leaking and still feels full when you tap it.
There are three other connections to the tank- one at the top, this I guess is the vent although there are other pipes coming off it as well as the vent pipe to the loft. There's one at the bottom on the other side from the cold feed which appears to come from the boiler downstairs- this I guess is where the hot water comes in? And then there's a takeoff about two thirds of the way up, which I suppose is a hot water out feed.
TBH it's well past the stage where water damage is an issue, so if I could simply stop the tank filling the rest of the water could be allowed to drain away before the drying out procedure could begin.
So- where's the water getting into the tank from? Could it be coming up from the boiler from mains pressure? Or somewhere else?
I will try and take a picture and post it so it's a bit clearer. Any ideas in the mean time gratefully received.