Proceedure in Winter to prevent water leaking

[Blair]

I live in a block of new flats and a number of flats are vacant in the winter. I would like to suggest that the water should always be turned off even although some people will be leaving their central heating on if the flat is vacant. The system installed is a Combi system. Before issuing this instruction I want to make sure that this is a correct one. We live in Scotland. Blair

[Andy]

The central heating side of the combi does not need the mains water turned on, it keeps its own water in the central heating loop. Turning the water off at the mains will not therefore cause a problem.

Andy.

[Christian McArdle]

However, old open vented boilers that don't have overheat cutout can be dangerous if the water supply is disrupted when their thermostat fails.

Almost all combis are sealed system and have no safety implication to turning off the water.

Christian.

[Owain]

There's no reason not to turn off the water AFAICS. It might be worth checking that there is no way of turning off the water outside the flats

- the block in which I live has the rising mains in the common close, with stopcocks outside the flats to allow damage limitation in case of emergency.

Owain

[Brian G]

Blair,

My advice (after attending many flooded properties) if you are going away for any length of time in the winter period (more than a couple of days) - is to drain down the hot water and heating systems and turn the water off at the stop tap.

Turn off the electricity and gas supply.

Drastic and will probably raise a few arguments here, but that is based on well over twenty years of local authority housing maintenance experience and seeing too many flooded and fire affected properties - and again, far too many of those tenants were uninsured, even though the council has scheme where household contents insurance can be paid weekly/monthly with the rent.

Brian G

[Blair]

Thanks to all who replied.So turning off the water is OK while leaving the Central heating on with a combi. I accept Brian's argument apart from draining down the heating system. If the water system is correctly mixed with Ferrox or equivalent which is an anti sludge and also an anti freeze mixture there should be no problem if the heating is left on set low. My experience is with an old weekend cottage that we came to every weekend in the Winter and I drained down the water system but not the heating system.We experienced some extremely low temperatures and on one week end the water had frozen underground but I still had the heating system operating. Blair

[Owain]

Also most new combi installations will be sealed primary, so even if there is a burst the volume of water that can escape is finite.

Owain