On top of a Vantage 150 pressurised hot water tank.
I think the cartridge is 149109, and it's dripping quite badly.
Are these something we should only expect to last as little as 10 years, or might there be a way to patch it up (eg by tightening it beyond what I'd normally expect a plastic part to be designed for) without spending the egregious sum of £80?
Why would a pressure reducing valve be on top of a pressurised hot water tank? Usually fitted to the inlet. Do you mean the pressure relief valve? If the pressure relief valve is leaking it could because the expansion vessel has failed, not the valve.
Does your tank have an external expansion vessel?
Tim
In message , at 20:53:32 on Sun, 24 Mar 2013, Tim+ remarked:
"Pressure reducing" is what Vaillant call it. It has a black plastic body about three inches long, in two sections. And it's clearly been leaking between the two sections for some time (stained with calcium deposits).
Yes. But the valve in question seems to be there to produce a "balanced cold water pressure", rather than anything to do with the hot water system.
rnal-september.org>, at 20:53:32 on Sun, 24 Mar 2013, Tim+
Fair enough. Maybe a clean up and descale will be enough but it depends how happy you are at playing with plumbing.
Tim
In message , at 09:32:52 on Mon, 25 Mar 2013, Tim+ remarked:
I think I'll get a new valve on sale-or-return, and then try to tidy up the old one.
On looking at it again I don't think the plastic cap is there to be watertight, the leak must be in the metal parts underneath.
I'm quite happy taking it apart and putting it back together, but I don't want to have to leave it in a de-commissioned state more than a few hours, in this weather. (And as it's in the cold water feed to all the house except the sink, it's a bit of single-point-of-failure for water supply too.)
The last (and only) time I looked at a vaillent hot water tank it had a
2.5 bar pressure reducer to reduce the mains to the working pressure of the system which was mounted near the top but feed into the bottom.It also had a pressure or over temp valve fitted at the top (90C or 7 bars IIRC).
And a thermostatic mixer on top where the hot water came out.
The cold came from the pressure reducer which is probably the reason its mounted at the top.
The safety valve should be easy to spot as its outlet goes to an overflow supposedly via a tun dish.
I am thinking about fitting one myself if I can decide on how to get a
545mm wide tank between 500mm spaced trusses.In message , at 10:47:53 on Mon, 25 Mar
2013, Roland Perry remarked:New valve arrived next day (Kudos to supplier "UK-Plumbing.com", who were also very helpful in confirming the part I needed) but the old one proved to be so rusted/gunged in that it needed chiselling out. Absolutely no prospect of cleaning/refurbishing it.
The new valve was exactly the right one and is now performing well.
My only complaint is how Vaillant can design such a short-lived valve and why the price is about 10x what it must cost to manufacture! That's not a criticism of the retailer - all of them charge about the same.
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