Cold water tank spec - dates

Good grief, that's over 20 days! I imagine ceilings would be sagging from the condensation before then!

Tim

I know - but it might have saved a few lives otherwise lost to scalding water.

AFAIK one baby died due to a faulty immersion heater thermostat, so I don't see where the few lives saved comes from.

I don't think that there is any such regulation for cold water cisterns, however, header tanks for solid fuel heating systems do have to be capable of withstanding boiling water.

This document

The regulations for water supply fittings are The Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999, but I can't recall anything in there about cold water cisterns (I presume you mean a cistern, i.e. open to atmosphere, rather than a tank, which is sealed) having that required of them. I'll dig out my old water byelaw book when I next go into the office, which I only do about once a week, to see if they had anything in them.

Colin Bignell

How would you keep a tank of water boiling for 500 hours?

Sharon Minister is also another death. For every death I would expect to see many more disfigured from scalding water.

I had no idea it was that long ago. I thought that regulations also includes systems which under fault conditions can send boiling water into the header tank. Like the situation surrounding the above deaths which were from faulty immersion heaters.

I see that document cites BS 4213.

A 3kW immersion going full tilt would do. Have you ever left the top off a kettle and seen the room filled with steam?

If you check the story associated with Sharon Minister, she was complaining about damp in the roof for 17 months prior. Perhaps 500 hours isn't long enough?

Must have had a few enormous electricity bills!

Tim

Perhaps the intent is that it would withstand once a week, for ten years, having boiling water in the tank for an hour? That seems a more likely way of hitting 500 hours than one continuous period.

Easy. Any faulty thermostat on any heat source and be away on holiday or even for a few hours. We'll need to go back to galvanised steel tanks soon.

Perhaps? Then it should say so, if it's a specification. What's the practical likelihood of having boiling water in it once a week for ten years?

It looks as though it is a WRAS requirement for approval. That suggests it is probably part of a British Standard. BS 6700, first issued in

Colin Bignell

cook sprouts in it?

Owain