No water from hot tap!

Diane60

Woke up this morning to find that the heating and the cold water is functioning ok, but we have no water at all coming from the any of the hot taps. We have a combi boiler.
What checks can I make to solve this. All pipes are in loft and I have removed the loft cover and the heating is on full. Can the pipes using the hot water be frozen?

Canucklehead

Hi


Do you mean you physically don't have water coming out of the tap?




GSR.

Diane60

Yes, no water at all from the hot tap, but it is flowing freely from the cold.

Canucklehead

Hi

Sounds like it is frozen.

Wait for it to thaw out . In the meantime find out where your mains water turns off . You might need it if it's split the pipe/fitting or whatever.

Then insulate.

GSR

Did you top up the boiler pressure last night?

macman

Is your boiler loft mounted? Most unlikely you have pipework in the loft if you have a combi, as there is no cold water tank there.
Have you tried switching the boiler to DHW only, then try turning on a hot tap to see if the boiler fires up?
What does the pressure gauge on the combi show?

Diane60

Thanks for your replies. Opened loft hatch and put in a blow heater on medium heat. This, and the sun on my roof, appears to have defrosted the pipes. Will arrange for them to be lagged again!! It was only -4 last night here. Just thought it was strange that the cold water pipes had not frozen too.

macman

What pipework do you have in your loft. With a combi, it won't be anything to do with your DHW supply unless you have a very strange set-up.
Have you corrected the boiler pressure if too low?

keystone

Macman - don't understand. Surely boiler pressure has nothing to do with DHW supply on a combi boiler as DHW is direct connection from mains through a separate heat exchanger from CH. Unless its a very strange setup of course.

Cheers

macman

Correct, I was just prompting an earlier point from canucklehead re checking the pressure anyway-trying to get a feel for how this system is set up.
Why hot pipes (indeed any pipes) in the loft for a combi?
OP seems to have a temporary fix but has not give enough info to really get to the main issue.

keystone

Ah I see what you are driving at - thank you.

I was thinking that it may be that when the boiler was fitted and the tanks removed the plumber was lazy and just looped the mains riser back into (what was) the outlet pipe from the CWST.

So there ends up being a short length of pipework still in the roofspace that, if not lagged correctly, could freeze. Kitchen cold is almost certainly direct off mains in the first instance (and prolly other cold taps as well) so thats bound to have worked as its route is not via the roofspace.

Cheers

Diane60

keystone wrote: »

Ah I see what you are driving at - thank you.

I was thinking that it may be that when the boiler was fitted and the tanks removed the plumber was lazy and just looped the mains riser back into (what was) the outlet pipe from the CWST.

So there ends up being a short length of pipework still in the roofspace that, if not lagged correctly, could freeze. Kitchen cold is almost certainly direct off mains in the first instance (and prolly other cold taps as well) so thats bound to have worked as its route is not via the roofspace.

Cheers

Perfect explanation and the exact truth...Thanks for your input.