lost hot water?

[sue]

My husband has just moved the cold water tank in the loft to one side as we are having the loft boarded. Ever since he's done thsi 4 days ago, we have no hot water.When you turn on the hot tap in the kitchen,and down stairs shower, it splutters through for a while, then slows right down to a dribble.The two upstairs hot water taps nothing at all comes out of.

He's drained down the tank in the loft twice, checked all the valves etc, the only thing we can think of is that there's an air-lock somewhere, but not sure how to get rid of it.

Would be very glad on any advice on how to remedy this situation, as kids are getting fed up of washing in cold water Thanks Sue

[John]

I'll ask a question just in case you're not a troll!

You say "My husband has just moved the cold water tank in the loft to one side as we are having the loft boarded." I presume this is your hot water cylinders header tank? Is it still connected with a pipe to the hot water tank? If not that's your problem, you dont have any water in your tank! If you are in this situation DONT try to heat any more water using the immersion heater or gas, re attatch the cold water tank to the cylinder, fill the cylinder and start heating again. If I have misunderstood your question I am sorry.

HTH

John

[Set Square]

It might be an air lock, or it might be that he has disturbed some crud in the tank - which had got stuck in the cold feed pipe to the hot cylinder, causing a blockage.

The usual cure for either of these is to temporarily connect a cold and hot tap together with a piece of hose, thus using mains pressure to force water backwards through the hot water system and up into the header tank. Don't do it for too long though, or the header will overflow!

[Steve Firth]

Note, if you do this, you must open the hot tap before the cold tap. Otherwise the consequences are amusing. Also note that for it to work at all, the cold water must be incoming mains. In some homes the bathroom taps are fed from the same cold water tank as the hot water.

[Christian McArdle]

Yes. This was required every couple of months to my parent's system until I persuaded them to ditch the cisterns and go with the (Mega)flo. It happened mostly to the cold (gravity) feed rather than the hot one, though.

Christian.

[Alan]

Sounds like an airlock - I've had similar problems after draining my loft tank.

I cleared it using a hose onto a mains fed cold tap (say outside tap) and blasted water INTO the hot tap, with it switched on. This will force the air back to the loft tank and clear it out of the pipes. If you have a mixer tap in the kitchen you may be able to do the same by holding your finger or a cloth over the end and opening both hot and cold taps.

HTH,

Alan.

[BillV]

I tried that many years ago and ended up with the concave bottom of the HW cylinder being convex :-)

[sue]

thanks for all the suggestions, I 've had a go with the tap business, and there's an improvement, not perfect yet, but definately running now.Just have to wait 2 hours for bath to fill!1 :-) even had hubby with lips around hot tap trying to blow back through to the tank, he was not impressed and thought I was joking....hee...heee..wish I'd taken a photo. I'll try the tap trick again, my biggest problem is that every tap in house is different, and I was wondering how to deal with the mixer taps, now I know. Thanks all. Sue