D
DustyM
Chaps (& chappess's)
Got a call to a customer yesterday to sort out a overflow pipe that was running 'from the tank in the loft'. Got up there and found there to be 3 tanks - 1 CWSC, and 2 x F&E. Slightly unusual for me as I had never come across this configuration before but I carried on regardless. The RH F&E was completely full and exposed to the atmosphere, so full of gunk and sludge of all sorts; also the expansion pipe was so deep under the water level I couldn't see it. Anyway, I drained of the tank so that it was about a third full and removed and serviced the ball valve assy - all good. I then got to looking at the rest of the tanks and pipe work. All three are connected in series, with the F&E's first followed by a ballo-fix iso prior to the CWS (yes I had to shut off the main stopcock to service the F&E ball valve). On further inspection of the piping I found that the cold water feed from the LH F&E went straight to a reduction tee into the expansion pipe for that tank - effectively a closed loop!?
The airing cupboard has 2 x storage tanks in there and according to the customer, it's because the open fire in the lounge has a back boiler that supplements the normal combi system (oil fired). The storage tanks are also connected in series and the hot feeds go directly to the pump.
So why would this configuration be set up so? Wouldn't there be merit in having just one slightly bigger F&E to supply to both the storage tanks and respective boilers seen as the whole system seems to be interlinked; and what's with the closed loop on the F&E tank? If it's something stupidly simple, then please accept my apologies - this is the first time I've come across something like this!!
Got a call to a customer yesterday to sort out a overflow pipe that was running 'from the tank in the loft'. Got up there and found there to be 3 tanks - 1 CWSC, and 2 x F&E. Slightly unusual for me as I had never come across this configuration before but I carried on regardless. The RH F&E was completely full and exposed to the atmosphere, so full of gunk and sludge of all sorts; also the expansion pipe was so deep under the water level I couldn't see it. Anyway, I drained of the tank so that it was about a third full and removed and serviced the ball valve assy - all good. I then got to looking at the rest of the tanks and pipe work. All three are connected in series, with the F&E's first followed by a ballo-fix iso prior to the CWS (yes I had to shut off the main stopcock to service the F&E ball valve). On further inspection of the piping I found that the cold water feed from the LH F&E went straight to a reduction tee into the expansion pipe for that tank - effectively a closed loop!?
The airing cupboard has 2 x storage tanks in there and according to the customer, it's because the open fire in the lounge has a back boiler that supplements the normal combi system (oil fired). The storage tanks are also connected in series and the hot feeds go directly to the pump.
So why would this configuration be set up so? Wouldn't there be merit in having just one slightly bigger F&E to supply to both the storage tanks and respective boilers seen as the whole system seems to be interlinked; and what's with the closed loop on the F&E tank? If it's something stupidly simple, then please accept my apologies - this is the first time I've come across something like this!!
