Townhouse - Top Floor no water for shower/taps

[adsta]

Hi!

Apologies if this has been posted before, but I have searched through the forum and not found someone with same problem.

The last few days the sink taps and shower have cut out on the top floor if someone has used hot/cold taps on the middle floor to run a bath or water in the kitchen.

When no other water is being used in the house the taps/shower work fine, maybe slightly less powerful than it has been in the past.

No work has been done to any of the plumbing, no change of taps, etc so just wondering if someone could give me a pointer at what I should be looking for in this 10 year old townhouse with water tank on the middle floor.

Many thanks!

 

[stevetheplumber]

need more info is this on hot and cold or just hot is cylinder unvented have you checked stopcock out side is full on etc

 

[adsta]

Thanks for reply. I'm a DIYer so will try my best to answer.....!

Hot and cold water effected. Worked fine for last 2 years since we moved in.

Will check the stopcock, but would assume it hasn't been altered.

Cylinder and being invented, what should I look for to determine whether it is or isn't?

Thanks again!

 

[Best]

Is the hot cylinder a unvented unit? (Usually a big white cylinder)
Or do you have a cold water tank in attic and a hot copper cylinder on a lower floor?
There are basically three types of plumbing systems, - 1 - mains fed cold with combi boiler fed hot water, or 2- gravity fed system with cold tank in attic & hot cylinder somewhere below, or 3- Some sort of all mains fed stored hot water system like an unvented hot cylinder with mains cold to cold supplies.

 

[adsta]

Thanks for the descriptions, really helped. .

Big white cylinder in the airing cupboard, so an unvented system is what I've got.

Definitely no tank in the loft. .

 

[Best]

Okay, then you have restricted flow through the mains, both to the unvented unit and the supply to cold.
Depends how yours is piped, but it could be a bad leak below ground outside the property, or the stopcock on road turned down, or stopcock in the house. Those are the things that need checked first.
If all seems okay with supply into house, get a G3 engineer to check the unit, as there are parts with it that might be blocked. The unvented cylinders have to be serviced once a year to keep them safe and must be done by a G3 qualified person.