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Hi everyone - a mildly amusing situation!
I am not plumber but have done few bits at home over the years. At the moment, myself with a few others are looking after a church that is being sold. The current bathroom set up is eighteen years old. In three sets of toilets there are a total of 4 hot and 4 cold taps and one mixer. The building is used occasionally but is generally closed. The central heating is set to frost and run when the weather gets cold. Hot water is set to demand so people can wash hands, dishes and so on few occasions anyone is in. A few days ago, there was a call from someone who had called at the church, that there was a tap running and it had caused some flooding. I turned up a few minutes later and what had happened was a hot water tap in the Ladies had been running. The sink hadn't over-flowed, instead the condensation forming on the tiles was running down the walls - for 4 days. As you can imagine, rainforest temperature and humidity.
I believe the tap had been left on by someone.
My reason for thinking this. The tap operates from closed to fully open between 1.5 – 2 revolutions and does close fine without the need to over tighten. I withdrew the mechanism barrel to check the condition. Apart from a bit of limescale making the tap operation a bit gritty feeling when turned, the rubbers, stop and movement were good. The rise is less than a centimetre from closed to open. For it to turn on itself it would need to defy gravity. BTW I’ve descaled the barrel and it work a treat now.
There has been a discussion about could the tap turn itself on. I’ve said apart from high mains pressure I can’t think of anything. There a taps closers to the main inlet that would surely play up first? One suggestion is if the hot tap is left dribbling slightly, then as the water heats up the pressure and the rate of flow might increase, without the tap necessarily physically turning. My response was that the boiler would supply the water at the rate the tap was asking for as the boiler is not pressurizing the hot water supply. Even if the water got very hot it would not be hot enough to cause the metal in the tap to deform sufficiently to increase the flow to the rate of a tap more than half open.
Just sometimes the obvious reason is the right reason and there isn’t some mysterious solution. Does anyone have any thoughts, am I barking up the wrong tree. I'm open to suggestions about what might have happened
Many thanks,
I am not plumber but have done few bits at home over the years. At the moment, myself with a few others are looking after a church that is being sold. The current bathroom set up is eighteen years old. In three sets of toilets there are a total of 4 hot and 4 cold taps and one mixer. The building is used occasionally but is generally closed. The central heating is set to frost and run when the weather gets cold. Hot water is set to demand so people can wash hands, dishes and so on few occasions anyone is in. A few days ago, there was a call from someone who had called at the church, that there was a tap running and it had caused some flooding. I turned up a few minutes later and what had happened was a hot water tap in the Ladies had been running. The sink hadn't over-flowed, instead the condensation forming on the tiles was running down the walls - for 4 days. As you can imagine, rainforest temperature and humidity.
I believe the tap had been left on by someone.My reason for thinking this. The tap operates from closed to fully open between 1.5 – 2 revolutions and does close fine without the need to over tighten. I withdrew the mechanism barrel to check the condition. Apart from a bit of limescale making the tap operation a bit gritty feeling when turned, the rubbers, stop and movement were good. The rise is less than a centimetre from closed to open. For it to turn on itself it would need to defy gravity. BTW I’ve descaled the barrel and it work a treat now.
There has been a discussion about could the tap turn itself on. I’ve said apart from high mains pressure I can’t think of anything. There a taps closers to the main inlet that would surely play up first? One suggestion is if the hot tap is left dribbling slightly, then as the water heats up the pressure and the rate of flow might increase, without the tap necessarily physically turning. My response was that the boiler would supply the water at the rate the tap was asking for as the boiler is not pressurizing the hot water supply. Even if the water got very hot it would not be hot enough to cause the metal in the tap to deform sufficiently to increase the flow to the rate of a tap more than half open.
Just sometimes the obvious reason is the right reason and there isn’t some mysterious solution. Does anyone have any thoughts, am I barking up the wrong tree. I'm open to suggestions about what might have happened
Many thanks,
