Tanks in my loft, what are they

[sinex]

o.k, I ask because we have no cold water in our upstairs bathrooms rooms, just a trickle of water to toilets and a trickle to taps, our house is only 7 years old fully insulated and we have never had frozen pipes before, which was my first thought, so I go into the loft, have left the latch open for 2 days to get some heat up there but no luck,

I find 2 big tanks and 1 small tank, I think the small tank is a tank for the central heating system, water is pretty dirty the other 2 big ones are full of cold clear water,

sorry to be thick, but I am not a plumber

 

[buffy27]

whats the craic
is the water at these services at a constant rate or is it varying
when did problem first arrise{how long ago}.
has it happened before
could some one ,maybe a kid have turned a valve in hot press

 

[sonray ltd]

would say you've got a airlock in the pipework if all taps are affected.

 

[sinex]

No kids in the house,
No stop valves were touched,
Has never happened before,
Noticed the toulet fill up was a bit slop 2 nights ago,
Just the 4 upstairs cold water taps have no water, some times a very very small trickle,
Toilets are slow to refill,

Ideas? how would I get rid of an air lock?

Thanks

 

[sonray ltd]

if you have all tank fed cold water upstairs then use a hose off the garden tap up one of the upstairs taps and push the airlock out.

i useally use a wet vac but its not the sort of thing everyone has.

 

[sinex]

if you have all tank fed cold water upstairs then use a hose off the garden tap up one of the upstairs taps and push the airlock out.

I useally use a wet vac but its not the sort of thing everyone has.

use a garden hose, can you provide more details on this, what should i do, appreciated, sorry again to be slow on this

 

[sonray ltd]

your garden hose will be mains pressure.
your taps upstairs are tank fed so lot lower pressure.

place hose on garden tap, put other end up bath cold tap and open bath tap.
then get someone to open the garden tap. (not so you flood the place)

that will push the airlock backwards out the tank.

hold for a few mins then pull hose out of tap.
the bath tap should then be running at full flow again.
if all running as usual turn garden tap off and job done.

 

[sinex]

Thanks for this, looks like my Saturday morning is not sorted!

Why do airlocks happen?

 

[sonray ltd]

air drawn into system.
bad designed layout of pipework.
tank ran low.

 

[sinex]

air drawn into system.
bad designed layout of pipework.
tank ran low.

Any alternatives to the hose pipe route? if I have access to the cold water feed in the tank in the loft?

The two tanks in my loft,

When we run the hot water, the left hand tank tops itself up from the main cold,

so the right hand one is the cold water tap feed and toilets,

Could the cold water shut off vales have furred up, There the old fashioned turn ones that sheer off

When I push the leaver and ball down it too fills up from the cold mains fed,

so must be an air block?

Upstairs Toilets fed off the same tank are now not filling up, evidence would lead me to think frozen pipe, but the roof is lagged, the pipes are lagged, the hatch is open to allow warm air in there, I am stuck here

The tank top up cold feed is working, there just seems to be a block somewhere between the cold water tank and the upstairs cold water taps and the toilets? Isolation valves?

 

[GreenArmy]

Probably an air lock, but otherwise, put your hand in the tank to the bottom around the sides and feel for the outlet (you should see where the 22mm pipe leaves the tank). Check you havent got a dead bird stuck there or some lagging from the tank jacket.

 

[Bagsy]

Hi, just as another thought and this because this happened to me when I was called to a job. Check that the cold water supplies in the tank are not blocked with anything, you will need a torch to do this to look inside the tank where the outlets are. In my customers case they had lost their hamster and it had subsequently died and found its way into the tank, it also had blocked the water outlet. This also happened to me on another job with a rat. Sounds awful I know, but this is the sort of thing plumbers have to contend with sometimes.

Bagsy,
www.plumbfixit.synthasite.com