Which tap does what - and why?

[Richard198]

Hi

In the process of redoing bathroom and have come to the stage of needing to turn the water off. Installed in the house is a mains fed direct system with an unvented cylinder and boiler set up.

There is a mess of pipes in the cylinder cupboard but only one with a traditional stop cock on it. The only problem is that when I turn that off only the hot water is affected - i.e. nothing comes out of the hot water pipes but the cold still pumps it out!

I can turn the cold water off with the water company's stop cock outside the house but that is a pain!

So guess the question is - is this normal with an unvented cylinder (or does that not affect it?). Is there any reason why you would position a stop cock in the house AFTER you have separated out the cold water supply? There are also two red gate valves on the central heating pipes but they don't seem to affect the flow of water (which makes sense I guess!)

Any thoughts / help much appreciated!

 

[rebuke]

Quite often the water main comes in under or next to the kitchen sink (because the kitchen sink is the only tap that is required by the regs to be connected directly to the mains, so they bring the water in there), or at least in a different location to the hot water cylinder, so it might be that you do have a stop cock, just in a different location...

 

[Rico99]

Hi there,

You should also have in your house a stopcock where the cold main entres the building. Usually fairly near the kitchen sink as this is usally the first draw off point for drinking water.

Again this will shut off the whole house, but is obviously less of a pain than going into the street everytime.

As you are re-doing your bathroom, you should be adding isolation vaves to each of the water supply pipes. Do this as soon as you can and you can then restore the supply to the rest of your house.

Rico

 

[Richard198]

Thanks both - the only thing I forgot to mention was that the house is 'upside down'. It is on the 1st and 2nd floor of the building and the bedrooms and boiler / cylinder are on the 1st floor - the kitchen is on the second. Would that affect things?

Will check the kitchen again tonight though - and thanks for the tip on isolation valves!

 

[Rico99]

Hi there,

No problem.

As you house is "upside down", the stopcock won't be in your kitchen.

It has to be within a short distance from where the mains supply enters the building.

Also depending on the age of your house, it may also not be a tradition looking stocpcock.

The shut off for my inlaws is in the garage and is a black 1/4 turn lever house in a plastic box.

Just thought I'd clue you up on that in case you only look for a tap.

Rico

 

[muggles]

If you have the plans for your house, look on there, they sometimes show where the mains enters the building (or at least was supposed to, groundworkers sometimes have a mind of their own...)