Hot water system in care home

[pcollins]

Hi Folks,

I've been asked to look into removing a shower at a care home, its the first time I've worked on a property of this scale.

I'll need to cut back the pipes as far a possible to avoid dead legs, and I understand that the hot water is on a recirculating pump system. I've not yet seen the pipework layout but was wondering if anybody can give me a few pointers on how this should be isolated so that I can cut the pipe back, please.

Cheers
Paul

 

[justlead1]

Have a look at the pipe work layout. It may well be that each unit can be isolated via gate valves. However if the whole system needs to be drained (turn off pump on secondary circuit) be aware that when reinstating the supply people in units may well have left taps on, which can cause issues.

 

[Bernie2]

May have an anti scald device on somewhere, so check for cross flow connection to cold feeding into line.

 

[pcollins]

Thanks guys, I'm certainly going to take a long look at the pipework before I cut anything...

Fingers crossed there'll be a gate valve off the main circuit but having swapped two seized ones this week for levers I'm not holding my breath!!!

 

[pcollins]

Well, spent all of yesterday chasing the pipe route back through walls and ceilings. Finally found where it joins main circuit and not an iso valve in sight .
So back on Monday to drain water out and cut piping back, should be an interesting day. Hot supply pipes start off at about 67mm (I think) in boiler room, there are (huge) iso valves on flow and return for this so I'm planning to switch off heat source and pump, isolate these valves and then drain out through some of the outlets.

Is there anything really stupid in that or anything obvious I've missed based on the above?

Cheers
Paul

 

[justlead1]

Yes possibly a freezing kit and a couple of compression isolating valve? If you have to drain down why not sell the client more isolating valves for other neglected services, based on the fact it may save money and or incidents in the long term. Good Luck

 

[pcollins]

I just wanted to say thanks for the advice on this, I've been over today, drained down and capped off pipes. Fitted a couple of iso valves too. All went pretty well apart from finding that what I thought was a one way leg to the bathroom below the one I was removing shower from was in fact a circuit (the tee was extremely well hidden amongst a lot of insulated pipework in a ceiling void) but fixed fairly quickly with minimal water.

So thanks for your input both, its much appreciated.

Paul

 

[justlead1]

Thank for kind words.
Whilst helping a guy working on a farm, i got into conversation with the farmers wife, who came out with a gem. "When your in the country my boy (I am 62) if any body asks for a lift over a stile be careful they normally **** in your hand" Nice to find she was wrong on this occasion. Good Luck

 

[pcollins]

Well sadly its possible I may have spoken too soon on this!

Had a call today to say that the water in a few of the rooms is not quite hot enough. Been over to examine and the water is heating fine to 65 C, flow pipe is lovely and hot but the return temperature is barely registering. So the units at the end of each of the two wings are suffering, particularly as all have temperature reducing valves. I didn't pick up on the temp difference on Monday as the water was fairly warm in the system still

So I'm assuming I have the mother of all airlocks but I'm struggling to know what to do as this is a recirculating system. I'm pretty certain (now) that I put the pump on too soon after filling so have circulated air into the return, which is a size or two smaller than the flow. I'm not sure whether backfilling from a mains cold tap (only one I can find is in the kitchen) would work, I suspect not. The only other thing I can think of is to let the system cool with pump off, then run outlets to try and get all air out, then try again, but otherwise I'm short on ideas for this one.

Can anybody suggest any possible solutions please?

Thanks again,

Paul

 

[justlead1]

Hi. Turn off pump and any valve on the hot distribution pipe. Turn on taps at end of run (providing no non return valves on secondary return the water will back flow, with luck pull any air out with it. Same process again using pump valve, purging hot distribution. Good Luck

 

[pcollins]

Thanks again for your help on this one Justlead, I returned today, one wing of the building seemed to have sorted itself out (i.e return temp for whole lot was pretty good) and this contained the one chap who'd been complaining, so no moans over the weekend. Other wing was still a bit poor so I took your advice, took a while but helped when I disconnnected the TMV in one bathroom and ran hot pipe to this straight into a bucket via a flexi hose.

All now nice and hot,

Cheers
Paul