intermittent hot water in bathroom help

rahimasara

I have an old vaillant combi gas boiler, turbomax.

woke up this morning to find the upstairs doesn't get hot water, out of the hot water tap comes cold water. the pressure is normal it's just cold.

however the hot water is intermittent, I find that after a while hot water does come out, especially if i turn the water a bit so water coming out is slow, however that could just be a coincidence I'm not entirely sure.

downstairs in the kitchen is fine. no error message on the boiler.

no loss in pressure in boiler.

Radiators working fine.

any ideas whats going on?

Doozergirl

Is this out of one tap or everywhere upstairs?

JohnB47

Not sure if it will help but I would have someone looking at what the boiler is doing as someone else turns on the upstairs hot water.

You say pressure is normal but it is difficult to tell if the flow is as good upstairs as downstairs. Could be the upstairs tap you're using is a bit furred up.

Does the upstairs tap have an isolator valve (under the basin somewhere and is it fully 'on'?

You didn't say what tap you are using upstairs but is there another tap you could try - bath? If you have a shower, does this work OK?

Paula_Smith

We have a Vailant boiler and sometimes it seems to take a long time for hot water to come through - it just seems to be if it has not run for a while e.g. first thing in the morning, which we assume is because the water in the pipes between the boiler and the tap has cooled overnight, whereas if it is used often the water in the pipes is still hot.

Mutton_Geoff

rahimasara wrote: »

any ideas whats going on?

You probably have a long pipe run from the boiler. It's winter and the pipes and stored water in them is getting very cold when not in use. The hot water has to reach the bathroom but warm the pipes up along the way so feels like it's taking much longer.


Run the hot tap for a good few minutes and check it fires the boiler.


If you can get to any of it, it's worth insulating the hot water pipes or better still, install a 3 pipe system with circulating pump so that hot water is always available at the tap as hotels, hospitals etc all do.


I have a run from my cylinder to an ensuite that is over 40 metres. I ran a hot water return for that on a timer so it doesn't take an age for my ensuite to receive hot water in the mornings/evenings.

southcoastrgi

Mutton_Geoff wrote: »

install a 3 pipe system with circulating pump so that hot water is always available at the tap as hotels, hospitals etc all do.

The OP has a combi