Not water coming out of hot taps - help!

[Ron O'Brien]

It's lunchtime and went to wash up my dinner plates - no water coming from the hot tap, same in the bathroom, cold water is fine. There hasn't been any signs of problems. Any ideas?

Ours is a conventional 1921 built house with hot water cyl. heated by either the emersion heater or (as now) the central heating boiler. I'm not sure what you call this system but it is the type that requires one radiator to be permanently on and you can't have the heating on without having the water on as well (I was once told that is significant).

[shazzbat]

I'm not overly familiar with systems of that age, but i would suspect something like the tank in the loft/airing cupboard being empty because a ball valve has seized up in the closed position. Depending on the design of the system, this may or may not be followed shortly by a terrible vibration (water hammer) that shakes the whole house, as the heating also runs out of water. If you can get to the tank, and if it is empty, get water into it by any means you can. If the ball valve is stuck in the closed (up) position, pressing it down should allow the tank to fill, but then it may or may not turn off properly, in which case the next problem will be an overflow.

Steve

[shazzbat]

I should have added, when you say the cold water is fine, does this mean in the kitchen only, or is the bathroom cold water also working? And does the WC flush, and assuming it does, can you hear it refilling?

Steve

[Harry Stottle]

The hot water supply is usually fed from a cold water storage tank in the loft, this then feeds the hot water cylinder, so it sounds like the cold water storage tank has emptied without topping itself up, check this first, it could be a ball valve sticking in the cold water tank, which is similar to a toilet ball valve. There should also be a valve near the hot water tank to shut off the supply to that tank, could this have been turned off?

[ARWadsworth]

Indeed.

Also if the header tank is full of water then check that nothing is blocking the hole at the bottom of the tank. The first time I was this the header tank was in the airing cupboard and a towel had fallen into the tank blocking the exit hole.

Adam

[Ron O'Brien]

Thanks guys.

It appears I have a very corroded valve in the header tank to water is not coming through, two baths last night and washing this morning emptied it.

I was thrown by the fact that there seems to be a full tank of water in the hot water cylinder - I forgot it needs the weight of the water in the header to push it out the taps.

Ron