Disconnecting cold water tank feed to bathroom & connecting directly to the mains.

[JessB]

Hi,

I’m looking for some advice. I have recently moved into a ground floor flat (leasehold), with 3 flats above me, in an old Victorian conversion. I’m planning on renovating my bathroom and have a problem pipe in the corner of the room where I want the bath to go, boxed in with a valve key sticking out. It looks very old. If I close the valve the cold water taps in my bathroom significantly slow, although the flow doesn’t stop completely (possibly the valve isn’t great), but the water in my kitchen is unaffected. I am concluding, therefore, that whilst my kitchen is mains fed, my bathroom is on an indirect system, fed by a cold water tank in the loft.

Since I don’t want the pipe there, don’t like the idea of brushing my teeth in old tank water, and have a combi boiler now, my preference would just be to cap this pipe and re-route cold water to the bathroom from the mains. I am on the ground floor so wouldn’t anticipate any impact to water pressure, but I am worried that I might impact water pressure for the other flats if I do this? Does anyone see any issues with this plan that I should be aware of? The only other alternative that I see is to chase the pipes into the wall and remove the valve, instead having a valve on each of the sanitaryware pieces – bath, sink, toilet.

Would welcome suggestions.

 

[rpm]

Re: Disconnecting cold water tank feed to bathroom & connecting directly to the mains

Are you even allowed to change things around under the terms of the lease?

 

[heliotrope]

Re: Disconnecting cold water tank feed to bathroom & connecting directly to the mains

You could get a very good idea if the bathroom is mains or tank fed by turning on the
tap and attempting to hold back the flow with a finger over the spout.

If you can hold back the water successfully but not the kitchen tap flow then the bathroom
is most likely tank fed.

If the existing pipe work terminates in the bathroom and does not tee off elsewhere the it
seem on the face of it that you could cap off and run the mains in.

You should bear in mind however that you could be leaving a long dead leg on the pipe from the tank (or where it tees off). This is usually unacceptable under the water regs due to stagnant water build up with the possibility of contamination to other properties.

 

[kris]

Re: Disconnecting cold water tank feed to bathroom & connecting directly to the mains

Best way to find out if tank fed is simply switch off mains so sink stops, if bathroom keeps running youl know,
Silly for flats to be tank fed ,, do you have access to the tank , ( is it in your flat )

 

[kris]

Re: Disconnecting cold water tank feed to bathroom & connecting directly to the mains

Ment to say your kitchen sink will always be mains fed so youl know youve switched it off when that stops,