Change tap washer without draining down...

[Andy Bennet]

Just turn off the cold water feed into the HW tank - hot water is drawn off from the top. Open the tap in question to run off a small amount of water (if any), replace washer.

[newshound]

Depending on the design, there is often a gate valve somewhere near tehe tank (or possibly from cold cylinder to tank) that you can turn off (recognisable by round pressed-steel handle). Or you can sometimes put a rubber bung in the bottom of the cold tank, in the pipe that feeds the hot cylinder.

If none of these options are available you may be able to make that tap "run dry" by running other hot water taps either nearer to the cylinder, or below the one you want to work on.

[John Rumm]

+1 and another bung in the vent pipe will save needing to drain the content of the feed pipe though the cylinder as well.

[newshound]

Have a wet and dry vacuum cleaner to hand, and a change of clothes.

You *might* get away with a bung if you have one the right size. Another option would be a second pair of hands: as long as you don't let the water run hot, the palm or the ball of the thumb will make a seal.

[JohnP]

Sort out your crusty valves!

[Tim+]

As others have said, if you have a header tank and don?t want to mess with crusty valves, stick a bung in the header tank outlet.

Tim

[Andrew]

Not if the water is at 60C :-). Turn the immrsion heater and heating off for few hours, or run away the hot water to waste.

[Andrew]

A carrot normally does the trick too.

[Andrew]

Every time the clocks change, remember to manually exercise your gate valves next to the hot tank :-)

[Andrew]

Remove the top of the tap and whatever is in the tank will soon increase the temp of your thumb or hand. Been there.

[Mike Clarke]

Lie a length of 2x1 across the top of the header tank and tie the float valve up to it to stop the tank from refilling. Then turn the tap on and the flow will stop when the tank runs dry. You can reduce wastage of hot water by baling out as much as you can from the header tank into a bucket.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

It happens that Jimk formulated :

If it is a cylinder fed from a higher tank, find something which is a tight-ish fit in the pipe from the tank, to the HW cylinder. You can actuall buy bungs for the job. No water going in the cylinder, from the tank means no water coming out.

[The Natural Philosopher]

eventually...

I was fixing a tap once, downstairs, and had turned off the mains and open the tap till the tap ran dry.

Unfortunately my (now ex) wife decided to have a piss, and flushed an upstairs loo. Introducing an air leak and allowing all the water upstairs to drain onto my feet ....w

[Custos Custodum]

Freezer spray?

[Chris B]

Like this

No water going in the cylinder, from the

[Dave Liquorice]

+1

Or all of the pipe work above the tap in question. If air can get in water can get out. Worst case is that it takes a while for air to glug into the pipe work leading you into a false sense of securtity. Then at some point the level drops below that required to glug and the flow rapidly increases as the pipes empty...

[newshound]

This is why I said DON'T LET IT RUN HOT

[alan_m]

Do you have an inline service valve in the pipe close to the tap?

[T i m]

<snip>

A mate, bought a fixer upper and had quite a bit of the place open mid winter so got the coal fire (/ direct back boiler) going hard one evening till he heard some strange rumbling noises from upstairs and found the water boiling in the cylinder.

He damped the fire down and went to bed.

The next morning he ran some hot water off and it ran for a while then slowed as he heard some different noises from upstairs and went into the bathroom to find the HWC collapsed like an old beer can!

Upon inspection the cold feed from the cold water tank had frozen solid, as had the expansion pipe (after water had boiled over), cutting the supply of water or air and the resultant collapse.

He then soldered bits of pipe to the cylinder as handles to pull most of the dents out then soldered up any splits, just to tide him over. ;-(

I would be surprised if he is still with us as when wiring the same house he fitted a light switch, rose, drop cord and pendant ... and when he put the lamp in it came on! Might the wooden step ladders have saved him? ;-(

He was actually a watchmaker by trade. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[PeterC]

Now that /is/ thread drift!