Well glasgowgas,......I said,
" Because you have a combi boiler, you don't have a hot water tank, your cold water comes directly from the mains and it is at mains pressure and it feeds your cold taps directly and it also goes directly to your boiler, your boiler then heats the hot supply and pumps it to the hot taps and radiators via the boilers own pump. "
You replied,
" jameshere stated that a combi boiler takes mains water,heats it up, and uses the boilers internal pump to pump it.
i replied that it doesnt,because, well it doesnt "
Doesn't what ?, doesn't heat the water ?, no, I don't suppose that is what you meant, I assume that what you meant was that the hot water doesn't reach the hot taps and radiators via the boiler's own internal pump, why not ?, I don't know, you didn't bother to explain why that is or isn't the case.
Perhaps you are stating that the boiler doesn't have an internal pump, again, I don't know if that is the case, I assumed that was how the hot water got distributed from the boiler, perhaps that isn't the case, perhaps mains pressure alone suffices to achieve hot water distribution, excuse me for not being a heating engineer.
Some boilers, including my old floor standing combi, certainly did used to have internal pumps, perhaps they don't nowadays, anyway that is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that the point that I was trying to make was that the bathroom cold water supply comes direct from the mains, and is at mains pressure, and that since that pressure was perfectly adequate in the bathroom before the bath mixer tap was fitted, it should still be adequate afterwards, but since the flow from the handbasin taps is now reduced, that problem must have arisen as a result of the fitting of the bath mixer tap, and logically, since the cold water supply has been reduced, whatever caused that problem must also have caused the reduction in flow to the handbasin hot water supply.
In other words, the reduced flow to the handbasin hot water supply has also been caused by the fitting of the bath mixer tap, and has nothing to do with the hot water supply from the boiler.
Also, logically, before the water supply to the handbasin taps was reduced as a result of the fitting of the bath mixer tap, there were no banging noises, so therefore, the fitting of the bath mixer tap must also be responsible for the water hammer noise.
faycat said,
" Just to calrify the order of events ...
1] new sink /basin taps fitted and worked perfectly
2] a week later bath mixer fitted [which works fine]
3] on same day as bath mixer fitted, the basin taps stopped working properly and I noticed the noise when turing the cold tap off. "
I say, therefore the logical conclusion is that your problems were caused by the fitting of the bath mixer tap with shower attachment, and BTW, did you note what I said previously, the particular model of bath mixer tap and shower attachment, have to be suitable for use with your particular make and model of combi boiler, and anti scalding safety is an important aspect of that.
Although I can't see how even a bath tap mixer/shower attachment and boiler model mismatch, whilst important, would affect your handbasin taps.
faycat said,
" So could something have happened while the bath mixer was being fitted that affected the basin taps [even though they are on the other side of the room?] "
Wellllll,......since the problems only started AFTER the bath mixer was fitted, the logical and obvious answer to that question, can only be YES.
faycat said,
" 1] new sink /basin taps fitted and worked perfectly "
then says,
" I was playing around with the basin taps and they feel "tight" to me i.e. you have to turn them quite far to get a flow of water [which then reduces to nothing anyway!]. I also noticed that when the water is flowing if I put weight on the taps or push against them at a cetain angle it seems to affect the flow and in some cases it stopped the water from slowing down. Does that mean anything significant??? "
Well that seems to suggest that the hand basin taps weren't as perfectly fitted as you had at first thought.
" Does that mean anything significant??? "
Yes, it does, the significance would seem to be that the person, or persons, who fitted the bath and basin taps have done a bodged job, and they probably aren't even knowledgable enough to know what it is that they did wrong.
I mean, apart from your noise and poor flow rate problems, have you ever heard of basin mixer taps that behaved like that ?, I certainly haven't.
I go back to what I said previously, you need a QUALIFIED EXPERT, the only way that you are going to fix these problems, is to find a recommended plumber who really does know what he's doing, who can look at the job, diagnose the cause of the problems, and put hands on and fix them.
Preferably an old boy who has been doing the job for years and is on the ball, finding such a person is the hard part, ask everyone if they know of a good plumber, the actual faults can't be very complicated or difficult to fix.
