Hi, we have a leaky hot water tap in the bathroom and thought we would be able to change the washer ourselves. However, we soon realised that we have no idea how to safely turn off the hot water.
I have done lots of googling, and can't seem to find a consistent answer to this. I read somewhere that simply turning the main stopcock off to stop the mains cold water would prevent hot water from being pushed from the hot water tank. Is this correct? And if so, once the tap is fixed could we simply turn the mains cold water back on again and that's it? It's just I have read things about having to recreate an air gap in the unvented cylinder, and things about the pressure. I don't really understand the system and whether it is pressurised (and whether this is something we should be getting regularly checked??) All I know is that it is an unvented system, there is an expansion vessel above the tank, and we have a condensing Ideal Icos boiler.
I can't believe that changing a tap washer could be so complicated that we can't just do it ourselves, but I also don't want to mess with a system that we don't really understand if there is a risk that we could cause problems or make it unsafe.
I would be really grateful for any advice on how we can turn the hot water off, and whether it is a safe thing for the clueless to do!
I have done lots of googling, and can't seem to find a consistent answer to this. I read somewhere that simply turning the main stopcock off to stop the mains cold water would prevent hot water from being pushed from the hot water tank. Is this correct? And if so, once the tap is fixed could we simply turn the mains cold water back on again and that's it? It's just I have read things about having to recreate an air gap in the unvented cylinder, and things about the pressure. I don't really understand the system and whether it is pressurised (and whether this is something we should be getting regularly checked??) All I know is that it is an unvented system, there is an expansion vessel above the tank, and we have a condensing Ideal Icos boiler.
I can't believe that changing a tap washer could be so complicated that we can't just do it ourselves, but I also don't want to mess with a system that we don't really understand if there is a risk that we could cause problems or make it unsafe.
I would be really grateful for any advice on how we can turn the hot water off, and whether it is a safe thing for the clueless to do!
