Sudden loss of pressure from kitchen hot water tap only

[spp1]

Hi, seeking some advice please!

My mrs was doing the washing up last night and the hot water tap suddenly lost pressure and now only comes out at a trickle. No taps or anything else have been changed.

All cold taps in the house and all other hot taps are the same as always with no pressure changes.

That suggests to me it's a localised problem - and my first thought is that it could be a build up of sludge in the copper pipe to this one tap - I live in a very hard water area and have had sludge problems with a length of pipe near the hot water tank when we moved in about 5 years ago. I don't have a combi boiler, but a system with header tanks upstairs.

So what should I do first? I am thinking that I'll disconnect the hot and cold flexi hoses to the taps and swap them over to see the flow rate of the hot water through the cold tap - to eliminate the problem being the tap itself.

If it's not the tap, and is instead the hot water copper pipe, is there a way to try and move/clear the blockage or would that be a bad move?

Any help greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Diyisfun]

If the hot tap to the kitchen is on a different feed from the tank, it could be a blockage there (ie fiber glass fallen in tank).
It could be the jump in the tap has come of the tap spindle.
I am not a plumber.

 

[spp1]

Hi Diyisfun, thanks for your response.

Unfortunately I've no idea if it's on a different feed from the tank, the pipe comes out of the wall and behind a kitchen unit, so I can't really trace it back as far as I would like, but I'll be having a look at the pipes coming out of the tank to see how many there are etc.

I'll be swapping the flexi hoses later to see if there's a fault with the tap - it'd be a pleasant surprise if it is just the tap that needs replacing!

Anyone else?!

 

[Robotmannick]

Sounds like a reasonable place to start to me. Although I'd disconnect the flexi-hose from the hot tap and run it into a bucket first rather than switching it over to the cold tap. This way, if the blockage is further up the pipe, there's a chance of pushing it out into the bucket rather than your cold tap. It also means you only have to disconnect one flexi-hose rather than two. Chances are that if the blockage was going to move, it would have done so by now and is already in the tap, but you never know, you might be lucky.

Oh and if the flexi-hose has a valve on it, remember to close it first before you turn the water back on! You can then open it gently and make sure the water ends up in the bucket rather than all over the inside of your kitchen unit.

 

[spp1]

Robotmanick, thanks.

Excellent suggestion about running water through the flexi hose into a bucket first. Although it's very tricky to get to the connection at the tap so I may have to undo the sink unit and move it as much as I can just to get to it! But I think I will try that first.

Good point re the valve but got that covered! I turned it off and on last night at the connection to see if that would help. Although the plastic "tap" disintegrated in my hand so have to use a screwdriver to shut the water off now.

I'll give it a try and run the water into a bucket to see if any lumps come out, if not then I'll switch the supplies to the taps and see what happens.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed the problem won't be in the copper pipes but it probably will be. If that is the case, would connecting the cold to the hot and turning the cold on to backflush the hot pipe be a bad idea, or should I be looking to flush from the top down ideally?

 

[spp1]

Can anyone else offer any suggestions? Blatant bump!

Cheers.

 

[xr4x4]

Does the tap have a filter type thing on the tap outlet?

 

[leakydave]

Or maybe a flexi tap connector has got a kink in it?