Leak in airing cupboard
morello
(one drop of water every few minutes) but obviously it needs fixing.
Unfortunately the leaking pipe appears to be behind the hot water tank. It
is a small airing cupboard, only a few inches clearance around the tank, and
so impossible to get at or even see without removing the tank. (or cutting
through the back wall, which I am semi-seriously considering).
How difficult is it to remove the tank? I don't know much about how the
system works. The tank has 2 pipes coming out of the front, both with
stopcocks. There is another pipe coming down from the loft into the top of
the tank. I guess I would need to turn of the main stopcock and then drain
both the cold and hot water systems? Will it then be a reasonably simple
job?
The other problem is, with the water turned off, how will I find the leak?
All the joints are soldered and I am guessing that one is leaking slightly.
How much should I expect a plumber to charge for this?
Tom
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Lee Blaver
> The other problem is, with the water turned off, how will I find the leak?
> All the joints are soldered and I am guessing that one is leaking slightly.
>
> How much should I expect a plumber to charge for this?
>
> Tom
To find the leak, you could drain the cylinder, then drop some fluorescent dye
into the cold tank a few
hours before draining the cylinder again to remove it, then look for dye spills
with a UV lamp.
Don't know about the rest.
Lee
Matt Birchall
morello wrote:
> We have a small leak in our airing cupboard. At the moment it is a slow drip
> (one drop of water every few minutes) but obviously it needs fixing.
>
> Unfortunately the leaking pipe appears to be behind the hot water tank. It
> is a small airing cupboard, only a few inches clearance around the tank, and
> so impossible to get at or even see without removing the tank. (or cutting
> through the back wall, which I am semi-seriously considering).
>
> How difficult is it to remove the tank? I don't know much about how the
> system works. The tank has 2 pipes coming out of the front, both with
> stopcocks. There is another pipe coming down from the loft into the top of
> the tank.
There should be four pipes into the cylinder - cold in, hot out, heating
coil in and heating coil out.
> I guess I would need to turn of the main stopcock and then drain
> both the cold and hot water systems?
There is often a stopcock between the cold tank and the HW cylinder so you
shouldn't have to drain the CW tank.
You will have to drain the hot water and the heating primary circuit (i.e. the
boiler water)
> Will it then be a reasonably simple job?
Many people in the ng (including myself) would not hesitate but I
wouldn't call it simple. I wouldn't try this for your first go at plumbing.
> The other problem is, with the water turned off, how will I find the leak?
> All the joints are soldered and I am guessing that one is leaking slightly.
Leaks are usually fairly obvious - the offending joint is likely to be wet! The
final connections to the tank will all be compression and it may be one of
these that is leaking. The cold feed into the cylinder may be at the back
of the cylinder and it may be this (most inaccessible) joint that is leaking.
(sod's law applies here!). One thing to point out is that the cylinder must
have been installed so it must be possible to remove it without too much
fuss unless the house was built around it! This cold feed pipe may been
attached to the cylinder before the cylinder was installed - so you
may have to disconnect the pipe some distance from this connection
and remove the cylinder and pipe together.
> How much should I expect a plumber to charge for this?
The trick is to find a good reliable plumber. This is not easy - it is essential
to get recommendations from people who can tell the difference between
a cowboy and a reputable tradesman. If you can't get a recommendation
then your home insurer may be able to supply a plumber - they may have
a helpline.
matt
morello
news:ahgjm2$arp$1...@helle.btinternet.com...
>
>One thing to point out is that the cylinder must
> have been installed so it must be possible to remove it without too much
> fuss unless the house was built around it!
This is something I did wonder about. The airing cupboard has internal
(cardboard) walls on all sides, so it is quite possible that the cylinder
was fitted and plumbed in before the walls, and quite possibly without any
concern about how to maintain it later.
I don't know who the plumber was, or if he would have been that dumb - I can
only hope not.
Tom
---
Tony Williams
morello <in...@xxx.morello.co.uk> wrote:
> This is something I did wonder about. The airing cupboard
> has internal (cardboard) walls on all sides, so it is quite
> possible that the cylinder was fitted and plumbed in before
> the walls, and quite possibly without any concern about how
> to maintain it later.
Oh I don't know..... I was going to do a 'proper'
job when I replaced our hw cylinder. But it very
rapidly dawned that the fixed positions of the
inlet/outlet holes on the cylinder and the fixed
positions of the i/o copper piping, (determined
by the house walls), more or less forces the
cylinder into a particular place and orientation.
In our case it puts the cw inlet connection in the
awkward place. It could be made better by turning
everything by about 30 degrees, but the required
kinks and bends in the 28mm piping (in that tight
space) would be somewhere in between the horrendous
and the impossible.
> I don't know who the plumber was, or if he would have been
> that dumb - I can only hope not.
I faced the same problem as he did, and did not
come up with a solution that was any better.
--
Tony Williams.
Rick Dipper
the back where you can reach before I put the thing where I wanted it.
Then I had an eacy to access join to do later.
Rick
morello
news:4b5a6f1...@ledelec.demon.co.uk...
I think there is a subtle difference. Any fool can make it *difficult* to
access, but to make it *impossible* to access takes forward planning :)
Anyway, haven't got around to trying yet, so I might be worrying over
nothing.
Tom
Tony Williams
morello <in...@xxx.morello.co.uk> wrote:
> I think there is a subtle difference. Any fool can make it *difficult* to
> access, but to make it *impossible* to access takes forward planning :)
> Anyway, haven't got around to trying yet, so I might be worrying over
> nothing.
Get some mirrors and torch, try and locate
the point of leakage. Also check whether
it is no more than condensation running
down a cold pipe. If it is a union, see
if you can reach round with a spanner. If
not, epoxy putty is the Bodger's Friend. :)
--
Tony Williams.
Ron Kerr
> We have a small leak in our airing cupboard. At the moment it is a slow drip
> (one drop of water every few minutes) but obviously it needs fixing.
>
> Unfortunately the leaking pipe appears to be behind the hot water tank. It
> is a small airing cupboard, only a few inches clearance around the tank, and
> so impossible to get at or even see without removing the tank. (or cutting
> through the back wall, which I am semi-seriously considering).
If it's impossible to see, how do you know it's a pipe that's leaking?
If there's a possibility that it's the tank itself you should attend to
it smartish. Mine started leaking last year and when I took it out I
realised that it was in such a bad condition that I had been in danger
of a major flood.
Ron
morello
news:Pine.SOL.4.21.020724...@carr8.ncl.ac.uk...
You must be precipient! :)
In the end we had a plumber out, and it was indeed the tank.
(To be fair, the house is only 4 years old. I assumed it was a pipe leak
because I could see the water dripping from a horizontal section of pipe
about an inch off the floor at the back of the tank).
Anyway, he charged us a very reasonable fee for what was obviously a bugger
of a job.