J
james75
Hi All,
Apologies for a long post.... I would really appreciate thoughts from someone more knowledgable with plumbing than me !
I've just had plumbers round to try and resolve a problem with hot water. The guys that came round didn't really seem to know what they were doing, and are now trying to charge for something I don't understand. I'm not sure if the work they claim they did is relevant to the problem I had.
Background: Combi boiler in downstairs toilet. Hot water pipe comes out the boiler, t-piece splits one side to the toilet sink, one side goes up to the ceiling. This pipe goes under the bedroom floorboards, before splitting on another t-piece - one to bathroom upstairs and other down to the kitchen.
Problem: No hot water in kitchen or upstairs bathroom, visible slow flow rate and the boiler doesn't fire up using these taps. Hot water is available in the downstairs toilet sink. The house is in a hard water area and the central heating is working fine.
Called boiler manafacturer: They fitted a new heat exchanger because of limescale, but we have the same problem and they say the boiler is ok and there is a blockage in a hot water pipe.
Called the plumber: Before I can get to the house, the first job the plumber claims to do is 'Check and Equalise Flow rate'. I have questioned them about this, and this is the response in their words:
"To attempt to equalise the water pressure at all outlets, we adjusted both water stop cocks at the boiler and mains. We also attempted to reduce pressure at the hot water tap in toilet and opened up washing machine pipe and drained into bucket, along with bathroom and kitchen outlets, to check all outlets and try to adjust the stop cocks for equal pressure at all points. This was done using a flow cup.
The outcome of the testing was that there was a potential blockage in the pipework. The reason for the test was to eliminate all taps and the mains pipework from inlet to boiler as well as the pipework from boiler to taps on hot water. We replaced pipework downstairs due to the fact that the t-piece on hot water pipe could be the cause of the blockage."
In actual fact: There was still a limecale blockage in some other part of the bolier, causing a reduced flow rate out of the boiler. There was also a limescale blockage in the hot water pipe under the bedroom, just before the split to kitchen and bathroom.
The work they did in changing pipework made no difference, and they did no further testing before suggesting other expensive jobs.
Is 'equalising flow rate' the correct testing for this situation ? If done correctly, should it have shown the boiler wasn't supplying the correct flow rate ? Can it really highlight 'potential blockage' in a hot water pipe ?
In the end, the boiler manafacturer came back and with the help of a different plumber we got it all sorted !
And before anyone suggests... we've had a scale reduces put in now 😱)
Thanks to anyone who's read this far !
Apologies for a long post.... I would really appreciate thoughts from someone more knowledgable with plumbing than me !
I've just had plumbers round to try and resolve a problem with hot water. The guys that came round didn't really seem to know what they were doing, and are now trying to charge for something I don't understand. I'm not sure if the work they claim they did is relevant to the problem I had.
Background: Combi boiler in downstairs toilet. Hot water pipe comes out the boiler, t-piece splits one side to the toilet sink, one side goes up to the ceiling. This pipe goes under the bedroom floorboards, before splitting on another t-piece - one to bathroom upstairs and other down to the kitchen.
Problem: No hot water in kitchen or upstairs bathroom, visible slow flow rate and the boiler doesn't fire up using these taps. Hot water is available in the downstairs toilet sink. The house is in a hard water area and the central heating is working fine.
Called boiler manafacturer: They fitted a new heat exchanger because of limescale, but we have the same problem and they say the boiler is ok and there is a blockage in a hot water pipe.
Called the plumber: Before I can get to the house, the first job the plumber claims to do is 'Check and Equalise Flow rate'. I have questioned them about this, and this is the response in their words:
"To attempt to equalise the water pressure at all outlets, we adjusted both water stop cocks at the boiler and mains. We also attempted to reduce pressure at the hot water tap in toilet and opened up washing machine pipe and drained into bucket, along with bathroom and kitchen outlets, to check all outlets and try to adjust the stop cocks for equal pressure at all points. This was done using a flow cup.
The outcome of the testing was that there was a potential blockage in the pipework. The reason for the test was to eliminate all taps and the mains pipework from inlet to boiler as well as the pipework from boiler to taps on hot water. We replaced pipework downstairs due to the fact that the t-piece on hot water pipe could be the cause of the blockage."
In actual fact: There was still a limecale blockage in some other part of the bolier, causing a reduced flow rate out of the boiler. There was also a limescale blockage in the hot water pipe under the bedroom, just before the split to kitchen and bathroom.
The work they did in changing pipework made no difference, and they did no further testing before suggesting other expensive jobs.
Is 'equalising flow rate' the correct testing for this situation ? If done correctly, should it have shown the boiler wasn't supplying the correct flow rate ? Can it really highlight 'potential blockage' in a hot water pipe ?
In the end, the boiler manafacturer came back and with the help of a different plumber we got it all sorted !
And before anyone suggests... we've had a scale reduces put in now 😱)
Thanks to anyone who's read this far !
