Low cold water pressure after turing stop cock off then on

[mroshaw]

Hi!

First time on this site, so please be gentle!

I've had a look through the FAQ and and not sure if item 17 covers this, as it seemed to be related to mixer taps only.

Basically, I had a leaky tap in the kitchen. I turned off the cold water, at the stop cock, turned off the hot from the tank and tried to fix the tap (unsuccessfully, as it happens!).

After turning everything back on again, the cold water pressure in the upstairs bathroom is rubbish. The toilet is taking ages to fill and both the bath and the sink cold water taps are suffering very low pressure. The pressure downstairs in the kitchen is fine. The pressure from the hot taps is fine upstairs and down.

I've checked the stock cock and it's fully open.

Not sure what else to look for? Could it be related to air in the system?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,

mroshaw

 

[leakydave]

I would guess that the water pressure is exactly as it was before, but the flow rate is now much worse. It could be that the washer in the stop tap is broken, loose etc and is partly blocking the flow of water. How easy would it be to get at this tap? Some are right at the back, but more more modern ones should be set away from an outside wall. Turn the water off at the boundary stop tap (carefully), drain as much cold water as you can by opening cold tap downstairs and then opening upstairs taps. You may be lucky and be able to dismantle the tap and out a new washer in, or it may be easier to replace the whole tap. This is not the sort of job to start at 4pm on a saturday. Good luck...

 

[mroshaw]

Thank you kindly for the reply mate!

Not what I want to hear though!

You're right, it's the flow rate that's decreased. I need to take time to go through the plumbing glossary on this site!

The tap is relatively easy to get to, but I lack any sort of confidence to tamper with it. I'm the worlds worst DIY'er and a job tinkering with the stop tap might be best left to a plumber!

One thing troubling me is that the flow from the kitchen tap is as strong as it was before - would there be a reason why this is not effected by a blockage at the stop tap?

Once again, many thanks for taking the time to reply!

mroshaw

 

[mroshaw]

Thought I'd post the solution to this, in case it's helpful to anyone else.

The problem I had was that, while the stop tap was turned off, I emptied the cold water tank by having a shower! When I restored the water, air got trapped in the feed from the tank. A quick go with a wet vac sorted it all out!

Ta!

mroshaw