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Hot water tank question (including photos) and DIY disaster!
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tomstickland
Posts: 19,538 Forumite
It started out with an immersion heater element replacement:
I wanted to drain the tank, so used the drain plug and a length of hose pipe.
Nothing much came out apart from some drips down the side.
So I decided to empty it by allowing water to leak out round the immersion heater. I undid it a bit and water started to flow. Not very quickly though.
So I gave it a bit more of a turn, then a little bit more.
Booooosssssh: the whole thing came out, followed by a torrent of hot water (not full temperature, but still about 60 degs).
It was quite surreal watching a tidal wave of hot water pour out.
It kept coming for quite a while and I had to think "I didn't really want it to turn out like this".
My major concern was that the plasterboard walls would soak up water and they'd be wrecked. With the help of a neighbour I spent an hour evacuating the room and turning my front room into a bedsit.
I wanted to drain the tank, so used the drain plug and a length of hose pipe.
Nothing much came out apart from some drips down the side.
So I decided to empty it by allowing water to leak out round the immersion heater. I undid it a bit and water started to flow. Not very quickly though.
So I gave it a bit more of a turn, then a little bit more.
Booooosssssh: the whole thing came out, followed by a torrent of hot water (not full temperature, but still about 60 degs).
It was quite surreal watching a tidal wave of hot water pour out.
It kept coming for quite a while and I had to think "I didn't really want it to turn out like this".
My major concern was that the plasterboard walls would soak up water and they'd be wrecked. With the help of a neighbour I spent an hour evacuating the room and turning my front room into a bedsit.
Happy chappy
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Comments
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A friend of mine turned up and we spent some time mopping up water. Things looked pretty good - almost all of the water had been soaked up by the carpet.
Me:
Friend:
We totally removed the tank
The reason it hadn't drained was because it's full of solid green residue.
Happy chappy0 -
What you should of done is tied off the ball !!!! in the header tank and ran the hot water taps till the water had dranied out of the tank.If i could i would, but i cannot so i wont, but maybe one day i will.0
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I assume that the solids are due to the hard water. Essentially solidified salts from the water.
My next door neighbour said that she'd had her tank replaced because of this.
Now that the bedroom is a building site then I might as well sort this properly.
My first thoughts were that I could take the tank outside and rinse it out with a hose pipe, then put two new heating elements in and reuse it. Is this a reasonable idea, or should I replace the tank?
I'm also considering the sums on replacing it with heat on demand, since I only use it for washing up the dishes.Happy chappy0 -
I love the fact you carried on taking pics as it was pouring out. :rotfl:Work like you don't need money,Love like you've never been hurt,And dance like no one's watchingSave the cheerleader, save the world!0
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The_Economist wrote: »What you should of done is tied off the ball !!!! in the header tank and ran the hot water taps till the water had dranied out of the tank.
No. The cold water was isolated. The hot water comes up from near the top of the tank, so even when the hot taps run dry the tank is 80% full.Happy chappy0 -
It was quite surreal. I stood there for 45s watching it, thinking "this is not really what I wanted to happen. Oh well, might as well provide some entertainment for other people. Get it on facebook".iwanttosave wrote: »I love the fact you carried on taking pics as it was pouring out. :rotfl:
I wish I'd got some video. LOL.Happy chappy0 -
That tank is mucking fasive mate!0
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You willl probably need to get your insurers involved. Tomorrow the house will smell of damp especially as it is in your carpets - they need to be dried with dehumidifiers. And you may find in a couple if days that skirting comes away from the wall, doors swell etc, plaster board starts salting etc.Eat vegetables and fear no creditors, rather than eat duck and hide.0
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Well, it's looking and smelling fine today. The carpet and underlay soaked up almost all of the water and are now drying out. The concrete floor swallowed up the rest and that's drying out now too.
I'm more interested in what to do about the hot water cylinder.Happy chappy0 -
I've been doing some reading up on my options.
The cheapest option for me is to take the existing tank outside, clean it out and then reinstall it with new heating elements.
The next option is to replace the tank like-for-like.
After that things become a bit more complicated. I've been told by a few people to consider unvented mains-pressure systems. These essentially have a sealed tank of hot water and a heat exchanger with mains pressure water fed into it.
The other option is heat-on-demand.
I've yet to do the maths but I think the last option is probably more expensive to run.
Economy 7 with enhanced insulation I expect to be the cheapest method.
Having said that, any heat loss from the tank is essentially night-storage heating.Happy chappy0
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