New House - Dodgy Plumbing

[bramleytom]

I’ve just moved into a new house and the plumbing seems a bit off.

I’m trying to work out what could be wrong - it looks like I have three tanks (plus a boiler downstairs). Could anyone identify what the smaller red and white ones are for me?

 

[muggles]

Small red one is an expansion vessel for the heating, small white one is an expansion vessel for the hot water cylinder. Perfectly standard setup. What makes you think something is wrong?

 

[bramleytom]

Thank you for the reply. I’m just trying to work out what I’m looking at!

The issue I’m having is:

- very low pressure in the downstairs kitchen cold tap
- very low pressure in the downstairs bathroom both taps
- very low pressure in the upstairs bathroom shower hot feed (but the sink is fine)
- incredibly noisy central heating system

 

[BlueLoo]

Kitchen tap should be fed directly from the mains?
Is the stop cock partially closed?
Leaking supply?

I think this is the first think to look at tbh. Trace the feed. Might be something simple and may be affecting other if the inlet pressure to the house is low.

(Guessing)

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

- very low pressure in the downstairs kitchen cold tap
- very low pressure in the downstairs bathroom both taps
- very low pressure in the upstairs bathroom shower hot feed (but the sink is fine)

Do your neighbours have similar problems?

 

[bramleytom]

Hi - no they don’t. For context I also have:

- kitchen hot tap that works perfectly
- ensure cold and hot tap that works perfectly
- ensuite shower that also works perfectly.

 

[bramleytom]

Kitchen tap should be fed directly from the mains?
Is the stop cock partially closed?
Leaking supply?

I think this is the first think to look at tbh. Trace the feed. Might be something simple and may be affecting other if the inlet pressure to the house is low.

(Guessing)

Thanks. No signs of any leak here but I’ll check the stop cock now.

Weird that there are other cold taps (upstairs) that work though!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Reads as if an isolation valve is partially closed somewhere. Call the plumbers back to sort it..

 

[BlueLoo]

Thanks. No signs of any leak here but I’ll check the stop cock now.

Weird that there are other cold taps (upstairs) that work though!

Only the kitchen tap is direct feed off the mains.
Everywhere else is fed off the CW storage tank.

So the two circuits are not linked except that the CW tank is fed from the same feed.

(Assuming bog std set up etc etc)

 

[BlueLoo]

Thank you for the reply. I’m just trying to work out what I’m looking at!

The issue I’m having is:

- very low pressure in the downstairs kitchen cold tap
- very low pressure in the downstairs bathroom both taps
- very low pressure in the upstairs bathroom shower hot feed (but the sink is fine)
- incredibly noisy central heating system

Check all the stop cocks.
And low pressure downstairs could be the CW tank being starved because of the kitchen tap issue.

 

[bramleytom]

Thanks all. Everything here seems to be quite old and stubborn - I’ve taken the advice above and called in a plumber!