Low hot water pressure

[Bowness72]

Hi everybody,

A day or two ago I noticed my hot water didnt seem to be flowing quite as fast as normal and tonight it has got worse to the point where the hot bath tap is hardly running at all and the other hot taps are also much slower than usual. Because of this I went to have a look at the boiler (Vokera Combi) and noticed the system pressure was quite low (about 0.7 bar) although not low enough for it to switch off. I tried to top up the pressure and it did raise slightly (up to 1.5 bar) but then stopped and now wont go any higher and I cant hear any water flowing through the flexible hose at the inlet like I would normally expect to. The hot water flow might have increased slightly but not much.

Obviously if the pressure dropped there must be some sort of leak in the system but its a long time since I had to top it up so that might not be serious. The fact that I cant get the pressure any higher suggests to me a seized valve in the inlet hose but I cant understand why it let some water in then stopped completely ??

Also, does this sound like the sort of problem that might cause slow running hot water ? or does that sound like a completely separate problem that just coincidentally cropped up at the same time ?

Any help would be appreciated as I have got a young boy who really needs a bath after playing rugby.

Thanks

 

[kevplumb]

the system pressure has jack to do with the hot water pressure
if your main is at 1.5 then thats as good as it gets fella

 

[Bowness72]

Yeah, I think I have two separate problems. I have just noticed that cold taps are running a bit slow as well. Have no idea what might have caused that. Our cold water supply comes through neighbours house first (old house) and she says hers is fine. When I have topped boiler up before it would have gone up to 2.5 bar if I had let it.

 

[muggles]

When you say it goes through the neighbours' house first do you mean it's actually tee'd off their supply? If theirs is fine and your hot and cold are both low I'd suspect a burst underground supply pipe.

 

[Bowness72]

Dont know how it actually works muggles but problem is sorted now. There must have been a problem somewhere with water supply pressure because a couple of hours later I turned tap on and it coughed and spluttered back into life. Neighbour obviously hadnt realised the drop as I think theirs must have been affected as well. I also checked valve in top up pipe afterwards and that was working normally again as well.

Thanks guys