How do I turn my water off to drain my hot water tank?

SoozyJ22

Hi, following from my thread about my immersion heater problem, it looks like it is the heater element which needs to be replaced and so I need to drain the tank.

My problem is that I don't know how to turn the water off! I have 4 pipes coming from the roof into my airing cupboard:

1) is for the cold water in the kitchen. This has a standard tap on it and I can turn it off easily and the cold water in the kitchen stops and everything else still works.

2) is for the hot water - it feeds into the bottom of the tank.

3) is for the cold water in the bathroom

4) is for the hot water tank? It comes out of the top of the tank and then goes both down and along the same outward path as the other pipes as well as up into the loft.

Anyway, my problem is how to turn pipes 2) and 3) off as the stopcocks don't have standard tap handles on them. Presumably it's just pipe 2) I need to turn off in order to drain the tank, but unless anyone can confirm that I think I'm going to turn everything off just to be sure.

If anyone can describe to me how to turn the water off that would be great, this is what they look like:





Thanks very much in advance.

SoozyJ22

Thanks, but maybe I wasn't clear ... what I need to know is how do I turn off the water in the two pipes with the strange red thing on them?

SoozyJ22

Thanks

Am I meant to turn it anti-clockwise by holding the red thing and turning anti-clockwise? Because I'm failing miserably at doing so at the moment I don't know if that's because I'm a weak girlie or because I'm doing the wrong thing ...

PS welcome to MSE.

SoozyJ22

It's electric immersion only. The tank's massive and the heater's at the bottom so I really want to get the tank drained as much as I can before the plumber comes to replace it tomorrow or he'll be here for hours.

SoozyJ22

Oops, yep, you're right, I want clockwise don't I.

But I still can't turn it so I have no choice but to wait for the plumber to do it.

Being a girl is a pain in the backside sometimes.

Thanks for all your quick replies

plumb1_2

SoozyJ22 wrote: »

It's electric immersion only. The tank's massive and the heater's at the bottom so I really want to get the tank drained as much as I can before the plumber comes to replace it tomorrow or he'll be here for hours.

It would be best not to drain the cylinder, as its always best to loosen the heater with a full tank of water.
Otherwise the cylinder wall tends to bend/twist without the support of the water.

SoozyJ22

ooh ok, that's good to know, thanks plumb1. I don't like having strange people in my house so I thought I could make things quicker by doing it myself, I guess I'll just have to deal with it though - maybe he'll want to sit outside in the sunshine - that would make things easier.

Canucklehead

Hi

Please tell me it isn't tomstickland:eek:http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=869945

As said leave it to the plumber.Gate valves are not the most reliable valve.

Corgi Guy.

SoozyJ22

Eeek, I hope it's not him either - but at least I know what he looks like, so if he turns up at my door I'll be able to send him away! My downstairs neighbours would not be at all happy with me if that happened here.

tomstickland

LOL, well my plan was sound, it just failed due to the surprisingly short length of the thread on the element. That was after the normal drain !!!! was completely blocked with limescale (I shone a torch into the heater hole and could see the blockage).

Bear in mind that just turning the cold water off and then running the hot taps dry will not empty the cylinder, since the cold comes in at the bottom and the hot is taken off the top.

SoozyJ22

I did know about having to drain it from the bottom. My Dad and I once tried to drain the tank using the 'leave the hot taps on method' and learned quite quickly that that didn't work (there was a leak around the heater in that case and it didn't stop!) so I do have a handy length of hosepipe to be used for draining from the tap at the bottom - it's just not going to be much use to me this time.