Would there normally be a way of turning off the supply from an immersion heater? Or does one have to top the cold supply to the immersion heater? There are two stopcocks on my immersion heater; one seems to be on the cold supply, I'm not sure what the function of the other is.
The plumber who installed the system 30 years ago has retired to run a pub in London, but I am sure he would have adopted a standard system.
Turn off the gate valve on the cold feed to the bottom of the hot water cylinder. This will cut off the hot water supply.
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Turn off the one that feeds into the bottom of the immersion heater. The water will soon stop flowing.
Andy C
Thanks (for both replies). I've always been slightly worried that if one turns off taps at random on the immersion heater the cylinder might implode. Is this a foolish worry?
You are only turning off the cold feed to the bottom of the cylinder. The cylinder is still full of water.
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You're right to be cautious but they have that covered:
If you can't find the inlet stop c*ck to the cylinder or it is seized you can always uses rubber bungs to stop flow from the header tank or tie up the ballcock and open the hot tap until flow stops. As said before, this is safe as the cylinder will not empty.
It can. Simply open a hot tap upstairs and run one downstairs.
Air in via upstairs, out via downstairs. How much depends on where the outflow pipe actually is in the tank.
Assuming it has a header tank of course.
Assuming...these exist
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing..
On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 15:43:48 +0000 someone who may be fred wrote this:-
Assuming one has cold taps/toilets fed from the tank it makes sense to turn these on to drain the tank and only when these have stopped running open the hot tap to get the last water out of the hot pipes. This wastes little hot water.
On a 30 year old system there is a good chance that will happen. It is usually easier to just turn the main stoptap off and then open the hot tap until the flow stops instead of buggering about bunging a tank up.
Adam
Thanks again for the replies. I found in the end that there is a third stopcock on the immersion heater, hidden under some insulation. Turning this off did the trick ...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher saying something like:
Which wouldn't apply to the vast majority of domestic HW cylinders, with a top outlet.
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