Fortic tank leak

[Mike Halmarack]

One thing leads to another. The management company of our blocks of flats sent around some documents which included the warning that stagnant water in pipes above a certain temperature may harbour dangerous bacteria, namely Legionella. Since I got a dose of Legionella a few years back in Portugal my wife freaked.

We don't use this hot water system as the shower is an electric power shower. So, I turned off the main feed to the fortic tank and drained down the via the hot taps in kitchen and bathroom.

This morning there is much water in the airing cupboard and a steady drip coming from the bottom of the fortic tank.

Is a drain down of the tank itself using the drain c*ck on the side the probable best solution?

[Roger Hayter]

I can't answer the question, but the Legionella problem is *prevented* by keeping stored water *above* 60 deg C, and regularly running water at this temperature through the pipes. Provided your hot water system runs well above 60 deg C regularly it is not a significant risk.

[Tim+]

Curious. What do you do for hot water for the rest of your hot taps? How long have you lived there? How many folk have caught Legionella from their HW systems in your flats?

Where is this water in your airing cupboard? Has your tank just sprung a leak?

If you want to drain a HW tank you can?t do it via the hot taps as HW is drawn off from the top of the tank. If you have a drain c*ck at the bottom you?re sorted, if not a length of hosepipe inserted through the HW outlet down to the bottom of the tank will allow you to syphon it out.

Tim

[charles]

provided you run your shower every day.

[Mike Halmarack]

Thanks for that.

After further investigation I've found that the leak is from a joint in the mains supply passing from the flat below, through our flat, to the one above.

The fortic tank hasn't been used for a while. The shower here is self heating and the washing machine uses only a cold water feed.

I'm told that as the new washing machines are quite frugal with water use, that often the filling cycle is done before the hot water from the storage tank has made it through pipework to the machine. So the hot water supply isn't used for that purpose now.

We boil a kettle for washing in the bathroom sink for the same reason, so this makes the fortic tank currently obsolete.

As it has been possible to run the hot taps with the standing cold water from the unused fortic tank, this makes bacterial effects on health possible. I did turn off the cold supply to the fortic tank and open the hot taps to drain down.

the fortic tank is still full of water and opening the drain c*ck from low down on the storage tank produces not a trickle ???

[Mike Halmarack]

Used this method but nothing coming out of the drain c*ck and this (gravity pressure?)tank is still full.

I explained the busy role of the kettle in an earlier post.

[spuorgelgoog]

Mine did that.

There was a piece of insulation or other gunk blocking the outlet.

Inserting a pokey thing caused the entire contents of the tank to discharge.

Owain

[Mike Halmarack]

Pokey thing gone to top of list.

[Mike Halmarack]

<...>

Kettle. No Legionella sufferers here, so far. It's that the management company sent a document warning of the dangers and stating that it was the leaseholder's responsibility to ensure that water in the pipes was above 60C.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

No most people get it from aerosols from the air conditioning on top of buildings blowing away and the coolness of the pools that atomise so to speak.

Brian

[NY]

When you use the pokey thing, and assuming it does its job, have a *large* vessel into which the water can safely drain during the time (which will seem like several centuries!) before you can screw the drain c*ck closed. And then attach your hosepipe and drain it into the bath / kitchen sink / flower beds.

Hope you didn't have to manhandle the *full* cylinder through 90 degrees to access the drain c*ck (it was round the *back* - duh!). When the immersion heater element of mine broke and needed replacing, I had to empty the cylinder to remove the horizontal element near the bottom of the tank. And the drain was on the back so after unscrewing the cold inlet and the hot outlet, I had to "walk" the cylinder round on the baulks of wood that it was resting on. Luckily I got a lot more than a trickle from the c*ck (oooh, Matronnnnnnnn!), so no pokey thing was needed ;-)

I had to Google what a fortic tank was. I've only seen one before and that was in my first house. For some reason the builders chose not to put a header tank in the loft or to make it a mains-fed cylinder. Cost, I suppose.

[spuorgelgoog]

This was in the actual cylinder, not any pipe/valve. We'd already drained what we could from the pipe and /thought/ the cyl was completely empty and had started walking it out.

Two people + two buckets required.

Owain

[Mike Halmarack]

Fortunately the company sent a man around.

No loft here, sad to say.

[Mike Halmarack]

Typical simple job. Protracted and messy.

[charles]

But, and I speak as one who had had the disease, shower heads can also be a source of the infection.

[Andrew]

Someone died after visiting a garden centre where the hot tubs on display had stagnant, tepid water in them and caught it from that.

[Andrew]

I did that for while and the three feet on the kettle 'melted' dents into the cushionfloor which won't recover. damn.

[Andrew]

If this isn't a hot water system serving the whole block, why should they care ?.

If it is a copper cylinder in your flat with copper pipes connecting to the hot taps then the copper is a biocide anyway.

Just make sure it is well lagged and get one of those Smiths timers that gives it an hour a day to get it up to temp and then use the hot water for whatever. If you have economy 7 electric, make sure it comes on during the off peak period.

An electric shower won't help your condensation and mould problem.

[Mike Halmarack]

I think mine was too but I'm not sure. There were a lot of shower heads and aircon blasting away at that time.

[Mike Halmarack]

I dunno, they seem quite careing in many ways. Maybe it's because they can be sacked by the freehold shareholders on a vote at the AGM..

That's the current plan, in fact it's in operation except for the extra lagging, which is on order.

We were on Economy 7 as a carry over when we moved in. But as the previous residents had thrown out the night storage heaters in favour of some trendy panel heaters from Lidl, I changed the tarrif.

Gave the mould an aspirin and a good dehumidyfying. Never seen a sign of it since. Though if it does show up I'll present it with the newly inflated electric bill. That should really scare it off.