Turn off H/W for Sink... includes pics!!

SimonWray · 3 Jul 2006

Hi.

I hacked off the kitchen taps last night and was a bit (but not a lot!) surpised to find hot water coming out from the hot pipe after I turned the mains stopcock off.

Any idea where in my system I can turn off the hot water?

This is the boiler (ICOS HE24) that was recently fitted by good old BG:
http://www.simonwray.dsl.pipex.com/house/boiler1.jpg

and these show the new tank & immersion:
http://www.simonwray.dsl.pipex.com/house/tank1.jpg
http://www.simonwray.dsl.pipex.com/house/tank2.jpg

Previously the house never had a tank or even cold water storage and had an old combi boiler. I now have a loft cold water storage and header tank, plus hot water tank.

The mains appears to come in from the front of the house off the street and I can certainly use this to turn off the cold water and drain the rads system... but I'm unsure about where & how to turn off the hot water, which I assume must be around the tank somewhere...

I think the left-most valve is the cold water gate valve (in tank1 pic) - should I turn this off? then run the hot water taps until they stop?

What about turning everything back on again? is there a specific order so I don't get air in the system? and do I need to turn off the boiler & immersion?

Thanks!
Simon

Steady · 3 Jul 2006

Yes. Turn off the gate valve on the left of the picture. This will stop any water coming from the hot taps. You will not need to drain anything down to work on your taps.

Steady · 3 Jul 2006

Don't worry about boiler or immersion

SimonWray · 3 Jul 2006

Excellent. Thanks for the reply Steady.

SimonWray · 3 Jul 2006

I've closed the cold water gate leading to the tank (and stopcock) then drained both the hot (took about 45 secs) & cold taps (took about 5 secs) of water... but when I chopped the hot water pipe below the boiler I still get a small flow of water coming out.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks
Simon

bster · 3 Jul 2006

Try tightening the gate valve some more, it sounds as if it is letting by.

Nige F · 4 Jul 2006

BG

..did they do the cyl and the rising main too and the cheapo gate valve that lets by. sorry I don`t mean to upset you , I`m just wondering who did it

Beans-on-Toast · 4 Jul 2006

May I ask............

Did this BG installation cost much more over £4k...?

SimonWray · 4 Jul 2006

To reply to both...

The old plumbing was a peculiar affair, mainly where a ground floor bathroom extension was added in the 60's which resulted in two draincocks because the extension is 6" below the rest of the house's floor level. Plus extra pipes for stuff that has since been removed.

The BG engineers did say that they thought the stopcock was one below the old boiler (as opposed to the one just inside the front door which i've always used). This stopcock was joined to lead piping and i asked they remove it all, which they did.

On the whole, i'm actually fairly pleased with the engineer/install side of the BG work - it's their admin & bureuaracy that I always have problems with.

It was a shade over 4K. This included boiler, cylinder, immersion, cold water storage & header tanks, programmer, room stat, all pipework and associated electrical work. The two engineers took just under 2 days, we were without h/w overnight. They were fairly accomodating regarding where i wanted piperuns and clearance etc.

Anyhow... i'll try tightening the gate valve some more. I didn't give it a real firm close as i'm wary of shearing it off.

Beans-on-Toast · 4 Jul 2006

Yes I thought the install looked like a BG £4750 to be honest.

It's a tad late to tell you this but I am always replacing gate valves for lever valves, the fact is turning a lever is so much easier than turning a round thing that never seems to shut off and has no real indicator apart from felling tight and this obviously is the point at which they break by overtightening or stay open through lack of tightening etcetera etcetera...

In any event just tighten it as needs be and assume that because it is new it should not break with the pressure you apply by hand.

fitz1 · 4 Jul 2006

if u had paid a bit more they would of lagged all the pipework.

Nige F · 4 Jul 2006

......BG.....Still on the old H pattern feed/vent

tight with clips too

4 man-days+materials =£4k..........just done one the same for a M8........not exactly, no boiler, just cyl. and de-aerator,3port,By-Pass.small amount of pipe..changed 3 rads...Looks like the boiler room of the QE2.cock-on, not cock-up

not that your BG job is a cock-up, No, I`m just reminiscing of when the Real Gas Board used to not know what a plumb pipe looked like and used to bury yards of pipe and hundredweights of fittings on site cuz no-one was "tasked

" to collect it and return to stores...just an old fart remembering the bad old days

diynot

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Turn off H/W for Sink... includes pics!!

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