Hot water tank

Look at:

The message from "pete" contains these words:

Be very careful about putting hot water tanks in lofts. People have died from sudden bursts landing on them in bed. It's bad enough if you're downstairs, but you're generally awake and not lurking in your pit!

Since it's made of copper it can be soldered easily. But of course not with water in it - or at least close to the part to be soldered. You could cut a patch out of a bit of copper pipe - cut along the length and flatten out. Heat it to red hot first to anneal. Then shape to the curve of the tank. Tin both parts , get someone to hold it in place with a wood rod etc then sweat in place adding some solder round the joint till you get a decent fillet.

That should work fine.

The OP will now have a prime example of dribble giving his standard answer regardless of the question.

Q:- What time is it?

Dribble:- The only way is to fit a combi.

Hmm; I've had my hot water tank/cylinder in the loft for nigh on thirty years ... [this is really entering 'tempting fate mode' ) with never a problem. Can you give _any_ specific cases of cause of death being cited as 'sudden burst landing on them in bed'? How many people are so effected each year? What is the cause of death ... over heating?, drowning?; crushing weight? - cascade of ten/twenty gallons of water falling eight-odd feet ? Is it a piercing injury or a blunt-force trauma?

I think you might be thinking of the Cornwall case

The incident which has been discussed here before was a plastic *cold* water tank in the loft. A failed thermostat, or something of that ilk, caused the water in the hot water cylinder to boil and expand into the cold water tank, which became full of boiling water and failed, depositing its contents through the ceiling on a couple in bed, one of whom died.

Owain

That's a bizarre and tragic accident. Maybe they switched the tank off at night because they knew that the water got too hot if they didn't.

A thermostat failing in the "on" position is an example of a single failure with potentialy serious consequences. Do immersion heaters have a secondary cutout like a meltable link?

Even so, the chances of a cold tank progressively filled with hot water, failing suddenly and catastrophicaly rather than progressively - must be slight.

Andy; thanks for your encyclopaedic knowledge .... now, as I read your referenced URL the incident was caused by a _cold_ water tank in the loft. The agent was the over-heating of the hot water (cylinder?) by a faulty immersion heater-thermostat system that produced expansion water which travelled up into the _Cold_ water storage tank. Methinks that if the hot-water cylinder had been located on the ground floor a similar result might occur.

I'd say the chances of a ventilated cylinder 'bursting' are very remote unless it gets pressurized in some way. Leaking slightly is far more likely.

And of course you might be having a nap on a couch in the living room directly underneath one in the bathroom. ;-)

Presumably , 'boiling hot' water would have 'floated' on top of the cold water in the tank whose ball-c*ck valve would have been shut? Any excess 'hot' water would have added to the weight of the tank - which, according to Andy's referenced URL, was not supported adequately. {I've looked at my cold water tank and suppose that another twenty-odd kilo's (weight) of water could be poured in after the ball-c*ck valve has shut - but: I'd expect the overflow pipe to limit the total amount. }

I've a feeling there is more to it, given they had gas central heating and everyone knows that is a cheaper way to heat the water.

Modern ones do. However, the noise they make when they boil would tell most there's a serious problem long before danger.

ITYM 'unique'. So expect a part X to cover it insisting all immersion heaters are inspected every week at the customer's expense. A new trade body is to be set up to oversee this.

Following this, immersion heaters do now have an additional safety mechanism.

This one seemed to be a combination of the failed heater, the occupier ignoring odd sounds from the water and the tank not having been fitted on a sound base in the first place.

In article , Brian Sharrock writes

Probably the cold water tank was anything but cold and the thing being plastic just melted and gave way....

This is the bad side of the Internet as fools like Richard Cranium are allowed to post. This is total tripe. A cylinder has to be brazed, not soldered. If it is ruptured it must be "replaced".

Utter s*it.

Oh, you just did.

Same old shitkicker, just another day.

Yes of course it would.