Water pressure suddenly dropped

[Gwen Dill]

Recently we had reason to replace our boiler.

It was on the blink and you could only con it into coming on by first turning on the hot water and then the heating.

Whilst waiting for the installation one day randomly the electric shower stopped heating the water.

It flashed low pressure - the water pressure in the flat has always been strong and the taps were all still fine even during this problem.

The water pressure on the boiler though had dipped and we repressurised it and all was well with the shower.

The boiler was then replaced - and suddenly the pressure from the taps was now a bit crap. It takes 30 seconds for the water to run hot now because the pressure is so low and the shower works but now has shitty pressure.

The installing plumber keeps saying that the problem isn’t with the boiler or any of his work. He says as it is coming from the tap badly it means it’s the supply into the flat. But we’ve checked the other flats in the building and they have the normal powerful supply.

He says the issue the caused the shower to stop shows it predates the installation but there was no pressure issue at the tap and now we’re left not knowing if we should be asking them to come back to fix it or paying someone else to do expensive investigations that we cannot afford.

Any thoughts on what this could be? He says the stopcock under the sink is fully on so it’s not that.

 

[Timmy D]

Well, you’ve managed to confuse me.

Please clarify:

You mention an electric shower and that pressurising the boiler fixed it. I do not see how this is possible.
The boiler pressure has nothing to do with the domestic water pressure. The boiler pressure is the pressure in the closed heating loop. It is not connected to the domestic water lines.
An electric shower is typically mains fed and uses electric to heat the water. Nothing the boiler does should interfere with that.

I’m assuming it’s a combi boiler?

You mention the stopcock under the sink. I assume it was closed during the boiler change? Closing and opening it could have be the catalyst for it to become faulty and now be reducing flow.

The random day when the shower stopped working, could have been crap clogging the inlet filter.
Could have been someone turning off the building stopcock.
Could have been everyone in the building suddenly using water and dropping the pressure.

There could be debris in the tap aerators/shower filters/shower head.The boiler change may/may not have stirred up some debris. Have you removed and cleaned?
Have you measured the flow/pressure?

Wherever there is work done on a old system, there’s a chance of other stuff breaking. If everything was in good condition/not faulty (valves etc), there’s very little the plumber could do during a boiler swap to cause these issues apart from maybe some debris in the line (this is still low chance).

You need to be prepared to pay for an investigation. I’d first be changing the stopcock.

If you put your car in for a service and during that service, the mechanic finds a problem outside of the service scope. We don’t expect the mechanic to fix it for free.

 

[clarkk]

Ever wondered why your RV experiences a drop in water pressure when connected to city water? This issue can stem from various factors, including leaky pipes, problems with the pressure regulator, closed valves, and more.