No hot water upstairs - very unusual problem!

[Fud_Face]

Hi All,

I had a new bathroom installed in September of last year where everything worked perfectly for about 3 months. The shower was boiling hot along with the bath and sink.

After this i started to get issues with getting hot water via the shower, it started to go cold for days before coming back again and providing warm water but its never been as hot as it once was.

Currently the upstairs shower, sink and bath are only producing mildly warm/ cold water. (The water is perfect downstairs)

But here is the strange part!!!!

1) If i run the bath and sink full on cold, with the shower on hot the shower works without a problem.
2) If i turn any of the sink or bath off the shower goes cold again
3) if i turn either the sink or bath to hot the shower goes freezing!
4) When using hot water the C/H does not heat the radiators
5) if using the hot feed dishwasher the shower is freezing for duration of cycle.

Equipment
Worcester Junior24i Combi Boiler
Triton Shower mixer

Things i've checked
1 - Checked the boiler pressure etc, hot water is scalding hot downstairs.
2 - Tried increasing and decreasing the stopcock for the main water supply in case it was too little or the pressure was too high.
3 - I have tried thsi with both CH off and on and it makes no difference.

Does anyone have any idea as to what this could be? I'd be very grateful to any help or advice

Thanks

 

[picasso]

One of the check valves (probably the hot one) on your shower has stuck in the open position, its usually easier to put a single check valve a bit further down stream than trying to fix the one in the shower,

hope that helps.

 

[Fud_Face]

One of the check valves (probably the hot one) on your shower has stuck in the open position, its usually easier to put a single check valve a bit further down stream than trying to fix the one in the shower,

hope that helps.

Thanks for the reply!

It sounds likely that this could be the issue however what is unusual is that the bath and basin tap on their own are also the same temperature as the shower. (mildly warm)

The sink is only very hot when the shower is on cold full blast.

Could it be more than one check valve or perhaps one on the boiler?

 

[picasso]

The cold is crossing into the hot supply across the shower valve so depending on how your bathroom is piped up luke warm water could be at any tap, all the taps or none, as you have found out running different cold taps makes a difference to the shower, a good indication is to turn your shower control all the way to cold (closing off the hot supply) and see if the taps are still luke warm,

this works on most showers but not all.

 

[gigz]

As above, if you can, isolate the shower see if it makes a difference. If it does take the shower back (or get your installer back).

 

[gas_man_gaz]

easy way to test is to isolate the cold mains into your boiler and open a hw tap - does the tap still run?
try the mixer on the shower in different positions whilst checking the hw tap, if it does run you have a fault with ya mixer.

does the hw get hot if you run the tap/shower at lower rate?

 

[Fud_Face]

Brilliant!!

Ok i gave this a go and turned the mixer right down to cold as far as it could go (and then some)

Ran the sink and bath and both were very hot again.

Ran the shower which much to my surprise has now returned to being as hot as it was once installed! I even tried put the basin tap on and the water remained hot without any issues!

not sure what might have caused/fixed this?!?

 

[Fud_Face]

and its back to being cold again ......

 

[stem]

gas-man-gaz gave you a test to prove that the problem picasso suggested was really the cause. That was not the fix. As the test proved positive, now you need to fix the fault.