water tank pressure reduction thingummyjig?

If I connect the house plumbing direct to the water inlet pipe would it need some kind of pressure reducer?

I woke up today to a dripping from the main water tank, which is a welded metal tank inside a bigger older riveted metal tank. Originally the house was fed water from a stream-run pump, but now theres a plastic pipe going up into the water tower and a float valve.

I guess the first metal tank rusted though some time and they inserted the other one to get it working and now that has rusted through.

But if I connect the mains water pressure to the house water supply would it be at too high a pressure and burst pipes and tap washers?

maybe i should insert a small header tank, or is there a valve thingummy which would reduce the pressure?

the door into the water tower is about a foot and a half wide and two foot tall, so's there's not much I could get into there without taking the roof off...

or i could put a cold water tank somewhere else...

i'm going to investigate further, ripping out the bathroom ceiling, but any hints and clues would be appreciated..

thanks

george

ps humbug

Reply to
george (dicegeorge)
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It depends mainly on your hot water supply.

Do you have a hot water cylinder, or is your hot water at mains pressure?

If your hot water is via a cylinder, (so the hot is at the same pressure as the cold from the tank), then DO NOT just connect mains water in place of the tank, as this will result in your hot water cylnder bursting, and flooding the place with a lot of hot water!

Toby...

Reply to
Toby

Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

whoops sorry, im still writing my reply, didnt mean to send that...

Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

Yes the hotwater is from a cylinder heated by electric and the rayburn, but it has it's own header tank.

Perhaps i could install a very small header tank for the cold water, to keep the pressure the same as it is now, or is there any advantage to having lots of water in the cold header tank?

it is still leaking, but only a small drip into a bucket so i've stopped panicking... [g]

Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

The problem is, with a small tank, you may end up trying to take more water than the mains can replace, you then end up with air in the system.

This is more of a problem in the summer when everyone has their sprinklers on, and the pressure drops.

The tank you speak about for the hot water, are you sure this is supplying the actual water coming out the taps, or could it just be a header tank for the central heating? Usually the cold water tank supplies cold water to the taps and also to the hot cylinder.

You can check this by simply not running water for a while, so all the tanks are 100% full, then turn on a hot tap, then see which tank starts to refill.

Toby...

Reply to
Toby

thanks, i now plan to replace both rusty metal tanks with one standard plastic tank. [g]

Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

If you have a seperate (usually small) tank that is for the central heating (as in it keeps the water in the rediators topped up) then you need to keep this seperate, you don't want to mix radiator water with the water you use from the taps!

Toby...

Reply to
Toby

There is no central heating or radiators.

The plastic tank will share supply to the immersion heater and to the cold supply.

But possibly the rayburn is in the same circuit as the immersion heater, (I dont know if it has a separate coil, but it has no header tank so i cant see how it could have)

Is there any chance of rusty water from the rayburn getting upstream from the immersion heater to the cold water supply?

As its used for brushing teeth I guess the cold shouldnt mix with warm water which may have e-coli and germs, worse than rust!

[g]
Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

I would assume the rayburn has a seperate water circuit, where it (the rayburn) heats water that is pumped through a coil in the hot water cylinder - you need to have a look at the pipework to see what is going on, I cant see it from here to tell you :-) The electric heater is usually just screwed in the top of the cylinder, and heats the water in it directly.

If it is using the cold water tank that is storing the water that supplies the taps as it's header tank (or "Feed & Expansion tank" to quote it's proper name), then I would asume so - you need to have a look and trace the pipes to tell what is what. If this is the case, I would install another small tank for this duty

Here is a couple of diagrams of a typical system, ignore the second coil in the cylinder, as this is if you had a seperate boiler in addition to the rayburn, it soulds like you have a rayburn and an electrical heater in your system...

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will also see, the hot cylinder is fed from a cold water storage tank (this will also feed the cold taps in the bathroom) There is also a much smaller tank connected to the raybrun -> cylinder circuit, this is the expantion tank that keeps this circuit topped up, and allows the water to expand into the tank when it heats (then feed back in again when it cools)

The cold feed to the (bottom) of the hot water cylinder is usually taken from the same tank that supplies the cold taps (From a point a little higher than the cold taps are taken from, so if the tank empties, the hot water flow will stop before the cold, to prevent scalding), the hot water cylinder should be heated to 60C or higher to prevent the growth of nasties, especially legionella.

Toby...

Reply to
Toby

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