In the final stages of completing the bathroom refurbishment. So connect the tap and the waste drain, connected the two flexi hoses to the tap and then just the hot to the incoming pipe, thought to test the tap was ok ...turns it on and water starts pissin out the cold water flexi hose, as the water was sputing out the tap I didnt realise it was going all over the floor from the cold unattached flexi hose.
Ah well we live and learn.
Do they all do that I wonder? I thought there were rules about not contaminating the mains cold water with the hot.
Going back to having water pissing out all over the place...
I once had to change the immersion heater element in the *side* of my hot water cylinder. This meant draining the header tank, disconnecting the inlet and outlet pipes, walking the still full cylinder round to get at the drain c*ck which was on the *back*, and emptying the cylinder through a hosepipe.
When I took the immersion heater box spanner back to the hire shop, the guy told me about a customer who had forgotten a) to let the tank cool down, and b) to empty it of all the water (turning off the inlet or emptying the header tank isn't enough). And so he unscrewed the element and when it was held by the last thread, the pressure was too great for the thread to hold it, so he was punched in the goolies by an immersion heater element which shot out, propelled by a 4" "plug" of scalding hot water - and once the element was out, there was no way to put it back in again, so he had to wait for a hundred or so litres of hot water to run through the house. That would have been one hell of an insurance claim...
I havent a clue but maybe because the tap lever was in a mid position it meant both tap outlets were open, if I had had the tap lever swivelled for hot only possibly it would not have happened.
Kind of reminds me about an incident shortly after we came here with the old bathroom suite. The bathroom is directly above the kitchen, and at that time the Kitchen had one of those ceiling mounted globe lights with a 100w bulb in it. So Father has a bath, Mother in kitchen doing some snacks. As the bath drains the globe light starts to fill with water, but the light is still on.
Mother notices and dad puts the plug back in the bath.
The up bend had partially come away from its pipe and water was spreading out inside the ceiling void and trickling down the light fitting. Bloody amazing nobody got electrocuted really, considering the crude fuse wire consumer unit in place at the time. It took days with floorboards up in the bathroom and fan heaters on to dry it all out. Luckily it was not able to soak into the plaster and make it collapse as we caught it in time. It was interesting for a few days skipping over the holes in the bathroom floor to go to the loo though. Quite how the globe did not detach from the ceiling with it three quarters full of water is anyone's guess, this after all was the age of bakelite. Brian
Luckily our tank is designed a bit more sensibly than the one in your example and it can be all drained down and isolated enough to get the element out without a completely empty cylinder. I am eternally amazed though when you get the heater out how bent and encrusted it gets just heating water. Brian
I had a slightly similar experience; we (plumber and I) drained the tank down till the water stopped flowing out the drain valve, then loosened the pipes to walk the tank round till the bottom connection was at the front to tilt it to get the bottom water out.
I wondered aloud why the hole was so furred up in a soft water area and the plumber poked his screwdriver into it. At this point we realised that the tank was not empty and all that was holding the water in was probably a stray bit of foam insulation (which stopped holding the water in).
Fortunately there were two of us, and buckets handy. If I'd been on my own I'd have been stuck with my thumb in the hole until the postman called ... some days later ... don't get many letters these days.
Even the plumber was a little bit startled by the experience.
Owain
My hot water cylinder had the header tank joined onto the top of it (*), so there was no explicit inlet feed pipe to disconnect. The outlet needed to be unscrewed (after I'd emptied the header tank and hot water system as much as possible by opening the hot taps) and then the tank was "free" to be rotated on the baulks of wood that it was standing on. That makes it sound very easy: in practice it was a case of tipping it onto one baulk, rotating it a bit, rocking it onto the other and rotating it etc, which took a while to get it far enough round to reach the drain c*ck. Which silly herbert designed the tank with the drain c*ck on the *back*?
Cylinders with the element going in vertically through the top don't need to be drained, but I could see that mine would need to, because it had two elements (daytime and Economy 7 tariffs) going in through the side: the daytime one heated the top 1/3 of the cylinder and the night time one heated the whole cylinder.
When I got the element out, only half of it was there: the ends of some of the loops were still inside, having exploded off when the thing shorted out at 1AM when the Economy 7 timer turned on - made a hell of a bang and left black scorch marks on the fuse box.
I removed the cylinder completely (carrying it downstairs on my own was amusing!) and hosed it out on the drive, and there was a *lot* of limescale in the bottom - plus the remains of the element. I'd estimate several kilogrammes of limescale, which probably filled up to the level of the lower heating element. And that was with only about 5 years' use, because the house was only 5 years old from new. While I had the tank out, I removed the other, daytime element and checked that, but the metal was still shiny because I imagine it had not been used nearly as much except for occasionally topping up the hot water if all the water heated overnight had been used up.
(*) Saves the builder the hassle of putting a header tank, a cold water feed and a pipe from tank to cylinder in the loft. It was a bit noisier because you could hear it gurgling in the airing cupboard as it refilled after running hot water, but it worked well enough.
Yup, if its a proper mixer tap, as many bathroom ones are[1] then that will happen.
[1] Kitchen style ones usually have a pair of concentric spouts that cause the water to be delivered separately and mix outside of the tap.
Very similar to when I was bringing up this house and had a shower mixer partially attached with the hose bit blanked off..
You got cold water out of hot taps everywehere, as the cold water was at a slightly higher pressure
..of course the shower was 'on', slightly
Has anyone else removed the trap from a sink, and then washed their hands in it? No? Only me then...
Yes makes sense when you think about it and guess who never thought it through :-(
This is the finished bathroom, probably the last major project I will undertake and just stick to painting and leisurely woodwork.
Just have to contend with my wife now who says the toilet seat is the wrong size, the fan is too noisy and the lighting is too dull.:-(
I've an idea I may have once rinsed the strap wrench I used on the rather scummy trap.
Time to trade her in on a new bimbo if you can still get it up.
I ended up swapping one of the seats on ours, since although it matched and looked ok, it was not very comfortable. The choice of options on yours might be a bit smaller though due to the shape of the pan.
What kind of lighting did you go for?
Very good looking result, I would be pleased with that.
I think the classic version is to empty the trap into a bucket and then pass the bucket to an assistant to empty while you are still under the trap :-)
On the subject of noisy fans, if you're thinking of using one the fans with a counter current heat exchanger[1] with outside air (the Ventaxia model at least) go for the six inch one, rather than the four inch one. It is significantly quieter.
[1] chosen for reducing drafts rather than to save the planet
sort of single-room MVHR?
I think I can see where the assistant emptied the bucket... ;-) Easily done in the heat of the moment.
I flooded the cupboard under the kitchen sink and the stone-tile floor the other day when I left the tap running with the plug in the sink. The water level reached the overflow and then I heard water gushing out. The corrugated overflow pipe had become detached from the overflow port in the side of the sink... That took a bit of mopping up and then crafty washing of towels before SWMBO got back from work...
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