I hope someone can advise and maybe directly help us. We bought a 12 year old all electric 2nd floor flat. After my son moved in he found the hot water taps only trickle and this has caused some annoyance plus it as indirectly the cause of an expensive flood . As the flow is so slow he leaves it to fill a bowl and sometimes forgets.
We have employed 5 plumbers so far- all supposedly qualified and of all ages and experience from 30- 60. Yes we had new taps, new tank, new sink etc but when the issue was not solved they just shrug shoulders and dont see it as their problem. The last consultation we had a vague suggestion of a pump to improve things but he never got back to us..nobody seems willing to promise to solve the problem.
We are not big time property developers just an old couple with a mortgage trying to help our son. We dont mind paying the money needed up to a point but no plumber seems able to promise a given solution will work. Now I am on here looking for a good man who is a qualified plumber in Harlow/Epping/ Stortford area who is willing to step forward, who has the knowledge, skill and commitment to sort this out for us? Anyone? Please ask questions if I have not explained the problem clearly. Thank you.
check all the other flats to see if you are sharing one incoming main, seen it before on shoddy conversions, the higher you are the less water there is to go round (pressure drop)
How is the hot water supplied?? You said tank replaced so im going to assume youve got a gravity fed hot water cylinder system?? I would think maybe air lock if youve replaced taps
Assuming the cold water pressure at the sink is ok, best bet would be to remove your existing tanks and get an unvented cylinder fitted.
A pump would be cheaper but not the best solution.
We've just paid £700 for a new tank 3 months ago- it is in the airing cupboard at same level and just a few yards away from taps. It is a 1 bed flat and only hot taps in kitchen and bath are affected. The modern block is just 3 dwellings and my son lives in the top one. There is no attic. Yes it is gravity fed...is that unvented or not? I dont quite know what that means but my husband just said it is gravity fed.
There are only 3 dwellings which are accessed by the attached entrance but there are other attached units with their own entrances.. I dont know how many properties are served by one channel. A few people have had pressure problems according to the block management team but I dont know if it is specifically hot taps. The cold taps in my sons place have perfectly acceptable flows.
What does unvented mean and what does it depend on to fit it? I am so cross because none of the plumbers we employed told us this and seems they fitted the wrong tank )O:
the pressure on the hot water can be measured as the distance from the water level in the tank to the tap outlet. 10m = 1 bar.
so if you have taps about 1.5m below water level you will only have approx 0.15 bar of pressure so the taps on the hot side will need to be designed to be able to allow a good flow rate at a very low pressure. the cold water is likely to be 0.9 bar or higher so will work better on the same tap normally.
remembering flow and pressure are different of course.
