Hi all!
I've been plumbing (domestic) on and off for about 5 years now so I've a lot still to learn. I was called out to a woman's house the other day with a problem I'm not sure I can fix. As with most things, I'll be fully confident I can fix it once I get it diagnosed...
So, She has two bathrooms on first floor with hot cylinder and 3-bar positive head Stewart Turner pump, which feeds two showers, hot taps at the basins and the kitchen sink down stairs.
The problem is in the main bathroom - when you open the shower mixer (half and half mix of hot and cold) the pump doesn't kick in. If you open the shower valve with the lever all the way over to cold, pump kicks in and you can adjust the temp and it runs fine. What the owner was doing was running the basin hot tap to get the pump going. So it seems like an air lock in the hot side right?
I had a look at the pipework in the airing cupboard and it seems ok. There is a Warix flange on the hot cylinder feeding the hot side of the pump.
I went into the loft - the cold water tank is about 2ft raised off the loft floor. The pipework coming off it is a MESS! There's enough brass elbows and tee's to sink a ship and nearly all the pipework within looks to have been installed when the bathrooms were done about 7 years ago. So the owner says anyway.
So I say, "how longs this been happening?"
"Oh a year or so I think."
"So, not since it was installed then?"
"No. I don't think so..."
Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to start diagnosing this?
I thought that if it was an airlock, the pump would drive it out and that would be the end of that.
I think the pipework might be the issue but don't want to start working on it till I'm pretty sure.
A Million thanks in advance for any help. I could walk away and tell her to get a s**t hot plumber in but I want to know what's wrong and feel I could learn a lot in the process.
Adam
I've been plumbing (domestic) on and off for about 5 years now so I've a lot still to learn. I was called out to a woman's house the other day with a problem I'm not sure I can fix. As with most things, I'll be fully confident I can fix it once I get it diagnosed...
So, She has two bathrooms on first floor with hot cylinder and 3-bar positive head Stewart Turner pump, which feeds two showers, hot taps at the basins and the kitchen sink down stairs.
The problem is in the main bathroom - when you open the shower mixer (half and half mix of hot and cold) the pump doesn't kick in. If you open the shower valve with the lever all the way over to cold, pump kicks in and you can adjust the temp and it runs fine. What the owner was doing was running the basin hot tap to get the pump going. So it seems like an air lock in the hot side right?
I had a look at the pipework in the airing cupboard and it seems ok. There is a Warix flange on the hot cylinder feeding the hot side of the pump.
I went into the loft - the cold water tank is about 2ft raised off the loft floor. The pipework coming off it is a MESS! There's enough brass elbows and tee's to sink a ship and nearly all the pipework within looks to have been installed when the bathrooms were done about 7 years ago. So the owner says anyway.
So I say, "how longs this been happening?"
"Oh a year or so I think."
"So, not since it was installed then?"
"No. I don't think so..."
Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to start diagnosing this?
I thought that if it was an airlock, the pump would drive it out and that would be the end of that.
I think the pipework might be the issue but don't want to start working on it till I'm pretty sure.
A Million thanks in advance for any help. I could walk away and tell her to get a s**t hot plumber in but I want to know what's wrong and feel I could learn a lot in the process.
Adam
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