Slow filling bath.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Was visiting my niece on Wednesday, and she mentioned a slow filling bath. Or rather my brother did. More like a trickle from both hot and cold. Is a

70s house with header tank and storage system. They seemed vague if it was the original bath and taps - but said it was once ok. They had a plumber in who changed the cold gate valve beside the storage cylinder for a full flow one - no improvement. But didn't take the side off the bath to see what size pipes into the taps. Everything in the airing cupboard round the cylinder was 22mm and neatly done. He was said to have 'flushed' the pipes out. It's a hard water area.

I didn't have a chance to look at anything other than the airing cupboard

- kids being bathed, and then supper on the table for the adults. Did notice the hot water flow in the kitchen was pathetic though - not surprising with a monoblock tap designed for high pressure.

They have a 'power shower' in their onsuite which is fine. The pump for that is in the airing cupboard.

[harryagain]

Several possibilities. An accumulation of limescale in the bottomof the HW cylinder could be blockingoff the CW inlet pipe. An accumulation of crap in the bottom of the header could also block this off.

Check out header tank, clear out if neccessary.

Get mains pressure hosepipe and squirt down cold feedpipe from inside headet tank. This should displace any loose crap in the HW cylinder but is only temporary fix. If there is a strong back pressure when doing this the scale in the cylinder bottom may be too hard to displace. Try disconnecting cold feed pipe to cylinder and poking something in the cylinder connection to clear it out and also the pipe. If this fails, only solution then is to clean cylinder by removal to outdoors and hosing out/banging sides etc May be neccessary to remove immersion heater if present to aid in cleaning out.

Quite a bit of work. May in end need new cylinder

These people need a water softener by the sounds of it, should have had one years ago. (A proper chemical one)

[Brian Gaff]

If both are affected, I'd have said it was on the cold water side of the cylinder myself. brian

[Brian Gaff]

Well we have hard water and have not had this problem though it does seem to destroy immersion heaters rather regularly!

Brian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I have a similar system here in S London - also a hard water area - installed in the '70s which still works fine.

I'm assuming the pipe flush the plumber did was to check the feeds from the header tank. And since both the hot and cold to the bath are poor, that rules out the cylinder?

[Vir Campestris]

FYI Brian, I was trying to date the immersion in the house we just bought - a Heatrae Sadia Superloy 2 in case anyone knows - and it's the middle one of three grades they make. There's one for soft water, one for medium, and one for _really_ hard. I imagine most manufacturers have the same system.

Andy

[Tricky Dicky]

My first instinct would be to check the taps particularly if the bath has a shower over it and nobody has actually used it as a bath in a long time, i t might just be the washers in the taps have deteriorated from being screwe d shut for ages. If the house is a 70's building the cold tap should be fed off the rising main like all the others so if there are problems with pres sure in the kitchen, cold water tank, header tank or any toilet cisterns th en it leaves the tap suspect. If one is knackered so could the other.

Richard

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Bath cold is usually fed off the tank, since it's not drinking water. There was definitely a 22mm cold circuit passing through the airing cupboard where the cylinder lived which I assumed was the cold feed to the bathroom. The wash hand basin may well have had mains water, though. Again, I couldn't check.

I was wondering about failing washers. The difficulty if finding out just how old the installation is - not having seen it.

[Tricky Dicky]

I have lived in two 70's houses and both have had bathrooms where all taps and cisterns were fed off the rising main, even our previous 1957 house had the same although I have to admit a lot of the plumbing had been buggered around with. It still had the old galvanised steel tank and a copper cylind er that looked like it came out of the ark and the only 22mm pipe ( which w as actually 3/4" imperial) was the hot feed pipe which had a overflow pipe going up the airing cupboard that hooked over into the CW tank.

Richard

[Tricky Dicky]

Correction - 2 off 3/4" pipes one as described plus the feed to the HW cylinder from CW tank.

Oops!

Richard

[Tim+]

Never in any house I've lived in, so not perhaps "usually".

Tim

[harryagain]

Quite commonly done. It eeabled identical (H+C) bathtaps to be used. Much quieter fill. Quite often the WC tank was filled from the header tank. Also showers were often rubber hose things connected to the bath taps back then. Prevented changes in water pressure/slow fill if another tap were opened. (CW mains often only 3/8" lead pipe) Usually found in upmarket properties.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Could depend on the age of those houses. At one time - at least in certain areas of the country, the *only* mains pressure cold tap would be in the kitchen. All others from the tank. This was certainly the case in London.

But as I said, it could vary by regional regs. In this case I'm pretty sure it is fed from the tank, due to the 22mm cold going through the airing cupboard. If not for the bath, what else?

[chris French]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Yup, from the houses I've lived and paid attention to it(mostly older) in I'd consider it the normal way to have the bath fed from the CW cistern and the only mains taps downstairs.

Of course, in the current house (victorian) it's a hotpotch with one (1960's) bathroom all tank fed, and the other 198090/'s mains fed cold.

Sounds likely

[meow2222]

AIUI bath cold feeds were normally direct mains by the 70s, and only fed by tank if the mains supply was particularly bad pressure/flow-wise. Find the stopcock and you'll quickly know which it is - if its tank fed, you alread y know there is or was a mains flow problem.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Did you actually read my post? There is a 22mm cold with gate valve going through the airing cupboard alongside the hot water stuff. And a cold 15mm which is fairly obviously the mains feed to the tank.

I can think of no other reason for a 22mm cold if not to feed the bath tap from the header tank.