Bath/Shower Mixer Hot Tap Very Slow

[pentop]

Hi,

I have a very old bath and tap set, but they are the same tap type as "Barcelona Bath/Shower Mixer Tap Chrome Effect".

I use this as mainly a shower, and over the last two to three weeks while using it the temperature has been going up and down as water has been flowing. Eventually I realised that the water coming out of the hot tap has pretty much stopped.

So as its the bank holiday, I thought I would DIY. At the end of the day when better to do it ! Oh, thats right when it all goes wrong there is no one to call upon ! DOH.

Anyway, I have isolated the water coming into the house, I have pulled off the wooden panel behind my bath taps and got to work. I disconnected the two water pipes from the taps by loosening the nuts on each ... and then tried to loosen the plastic nuts connecting the taps to the bath but my spanner just kept slipping so gave up on that one. It appears as if there is some kind of cement around the plastic nuts, and the hot taps plastic nut fitting is covered in rust.

As I couldnt get the tap off the bath, I proceeded to attack the problem from underneath. I got a small screw driver and put it up into the tap moving it around gently trying to encourage anything clogging up the tap to come out, sadly nothing did. So I put some flash spray, JIF and WD40 up the tap from underneath and left it get to work for sometime.

After about 30 minutes I connected the water pipes, turned the water back on into the house. Turned various taps on around the house to clear the air from the system, increased the pressure to my combi boiler and then went to test the hot top ...

Now nothing is coming out of the hot tap !!! Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Al-Glasgow]

more info on your heating system would be helpful.

sounds like airlock possibly ?.

Al

 

[pentop]

With everything as it should be, water on at the house, combi boiler running I loosened the bolt connecting onto the bottom of the tap and water started to spurt out, which would suggest it isnt a air lock right ?

I have a Worcester 35 CDI II combi boiler.

 

[pentop]

Ive sorted it out.

Due to my inexperience I didnt realise that I could get inside the tap without taking the tap off the bath. So this morning I turned the water off again. Took the plastic cover off the hot tap, then using a spanner turned the tap mechanism inside until it came off !

I then put it inside the plastic covering so that I could turn it, and in my other hand held on to the plunger mechanism with a cloth. I didnt know what to expect when turning it so couldnt tell what was wrong.

So I took the cold one off to see what a working one should do. Sure enough the difference was the plunger inside on the cold was going up and down the one on the hot wasnt moving.

So by fluke I kept turning the hot mechanism and finally it came apart. I then clean out the threads inside, put a bit of WD40 in, screwed it back together, continued to play with it for sometime and then it started moving up and down.

I have now put it back together again, turned on the water and the household shower is back up and running !

Thanks for the reply, hope the above helps someone else one day.