Seeking education on hot water tank pipework layout

[hcanning]

Hi everyone,

Long time listener reader, first time caller poster!

So among the many little "boredom during lockdown" projects I've been doing at home, today I've been reading up and trying to understand how vented hot water systems work, and how all the pipework in one of our upstairs cupboards works, after wondering what it's all still doing there!

This system was all removed and a combi boiler installed before we bought the place, but purely out of interest I'd like to know how it all worked, as well as wondering why all these pipes were left in place. So just pretend that the Miele is a water tank!

Please see photos below - would anyone be kind enough to describe how it worked? Presumably there are pipes missing that went to/from the tank but I can't work out where they went. I'm assuming it was a 2 or 3 way valve-based system.

I've colour coded the pipes in case that helps.

Thank you

Edit: Christ these photos are enormous; I assumed the forum software would resize. Apologies!

 

[Madrab]

This is just an educated guess of course.

You would have a cold mains feed the would have run up to the loft to feed the cold water storage cistern (red) that is now capped and connected to the other cold pipe work to convert what would probably have been cistern fed water to the bathroom (yellow/green) over to the mains. Then you will have had a hot water supply that would have run from the top of the cylinder and that will be looped up from the boiler downstairs (blue).

If you run the hot water in the bathroom check if blue gets hot. The others should stay go cold when cold water is run.

 

[hcanning]

This is just an educated guess of course.

You would have a cold mains feed the would have run up to the loft to feed the cold water storage cistern (red) that is now capped and connected to the other cold pipe work to convert what would probably have been cistern fed water to the bathroom (yellow/green) over to the mains. Then you will have had a hot water supply that would have run from the top of the cylinder and that will be looped up from the boiler downstairs (blue).

If you run the hot water in the bathroom check if blue gets hot. The others should stay go cold when cold water is run.

Interesting... blue doesn’t get hot when I run the sink tap but that’s fed straight up from the kitchen anyway.
But it does get hot when I run the shower! That would explain why the shower takes longer than the sink or the bath to warm up!

I can also feel movement through green when the shower is cold only, so that must be the showers cold water feed. Do you think it’s deliberately plumbed like that so you can operate the two gate valves and isolate the shower for maintenance / leaks, or just because of other reasons?

I also wonder why it’s all left so “high up” and not more neatly at floor level

 

[Gasplumber]

Looks like a lazy convert. Get a plumber round they could prob get that all under floor for you and out the way

 

[Madrab]

I also wonder why it’s all left so “high up” and not more neatly at floor level

As @Gasplumber suggests, they've taken the easy lazy way without cutting anything back to under the floor level and could easily be sorted out.

Gate valves aren't very effective when it comes to mains water either so they wold normally be removed or replaced.