Gravity fed water system problems.......

shrewandroo

A quick background. I am renting a property which has a very old central heating/hot water heating system. In my son's bedroom, there is a cupboard with 2 black plastic water tanks and below a smallish hot water tank.When we run the hot tap, you can hear the water refilling the plastic tanks.The water pressure is also very low.
We only use the hot water from the tank for my children's bath each night (they share the water) and for washing up throughout the day. The water is heated if the heating is on, otherwise it is on for an hour in the morning and evening.

For the last couple of weeks, when running the childrens bath, the hot water stops after about an inch of water has run......i.e nothing comes out of the tap, and also the cold water runs out as well! Water (hot and cold) comes out of the taps everywhere else though. We are ending up using the electric shower to fill the bath.:(

Our landlord is very reluctant to fix things unless really necessary, so wanted to get some info if I can about possible reasons for the problem. Any comments welcome.

Myser

You may have a possible airlock in the system,

Other cold water taps may be fed directly from the main supply into the property i.e. the kitchen/garden taps.

Have you checked all the mains stop valves. Coming into the property out of both tanks?

Do others suffer from poor water pressure in your area too?

There is a test you can do to check the water pressure by filling a container and timing how long it takes to reach a certain level. If it takes longer than a specified amount of time, you may be able to request the local water company to upgrade your main water supply pipe to the property.

shrewandroo

Thank you Myser......it does sound like it maight be that. Will have to check tomorrow.....sorry to be thick but what am I actually looking for? The low pressure seems to be the hot taps all over the house and just the cold tap on the bath. The rest of cold taps have a good pressure.

Canucklehead

Hi.

When you say you can hear the tank refilling, how long do you hear that noise for?

A few mins, 30 mins? Longer?

GSR.

shrewandroo

A few minutes of gushing water and then a trickling noise for about 10 mins after that.

rrf494g

When living in very hard water area . . .

in Stanmore , London, I had a similar problem, which was caused by lime scale blocking the feed of water from the holding cistern into the hot water tank. It was cured by doses of a powerful de-scaler being flushed through the water holding cistern, through the hot water tank (with some heating) and out thro' the bath.

good luck

27col

If the tanks are in the bedroom then it is likely that the problem is simply due to a lack of "head". In fact, you have described the hot water pressure as being low, and that is almost certainly due to the lack of water head. The higher up the tanks are, the more pressure you will get. Other than moving the tanks into the roof, there is no easy solution to your problem. It sounds like an installation of very dubious quality.
If the hot water is running out quickly, then perhaps there is a problem with the top up supply to the tanks, as someone has already suggested. If you can physically see into the tank then you should be able to see if the make up supply is keeping the tank topped up. If it is not, then the taps will soon lose their water.

ListysDad

Sorry but this is not a 'dubious' installation at all. I do wish people would stop assuming and keeping fit by jumping to misguided conclusions...

The simple fact of the matter is that it's a very common arrangement albeit not very effective for reasons already stated i.e. that it doesn't deliver much pressure at the taps due to a lack of head (height).

Depending on the age of the system, as well as issues such as whether the tank has a properly fitted lid, I would opt for an air lock. It's unlikely to be detritus in the outlet from the tank as other HW taps are working fine.

If your cold water to the bath is mains fed try SLOWLY feeding some of the mains cold water back into the hot tap (which has to be open!). This should clear most air locks. If you have a shower mixer tap then simply turn on the hot and wait for it to stop, turn on the cold slowly and bend the shower tube or block the end with your thumb so nothing can come out.

Most of the time the high pressure cold will force itself up the hot supply and clear the air lock. Only do it for a minute or so and then turn off the cold and hot at once. Then try the hot again. Sometimes you have to do it two or three times before it clears.

Good luck.

keystone

shrewandroo wrote: »

Our landlord is very reluctant to fix things unless really necessary, so wanted to get some info if I can about possible reasons for the problem. Any comments welcome.

I think you are coming at this problem from entirely the wrong angle. Your landlord won't be inrtterested in a technical assessment of what the problems are with the plumbing in the establishment even less if said technical assessments are sight unseen on an internet forum. So the physical reasons are irrelevant to your discussion with him.

The only real reason you need to cite is that you have insufficient hot water and you don't care how or why not but you want some please for sanitary, hygenic and whatever else reasons because that is what you pay him rent for.

Cheers