Poor Hot Water Flow Upstairs

[Frank Haskins]

Hi,

any help with the above problem would be greatly appreciated.

We have had this problem since moving in a few years ago. The hot water flow from the bath and basin upstairs is 80% of the time useless. Sometimes it is fine and runs as you would expect but more often than not it is a trickle and very occasionally seems to stop all together for a few seconds ??

The hot water downstairs in the kitchen is fine (does splutter a bit) and sometimes after running the hot downstairs for a few minutes the flow upstairs improves. It seems to be completely random or at least I can't work out if it is happening at a specific time.

The tanks are in the loft and we have been that it might be something to do with the height of tanks in relation to each other but to be honest I haven't got a clue.

Any ideas anyone ? If you need anymore information please ask.

FH

 

[kevplumb]

 

[bster]

The higher the cold water storage cistern, the greater the pressure. To determine the expected pressure you would have to measure from the base of the tank to the heaight of whatever tap outlet (1 meter = 0.1bar)
You may have badly designed/installed hot water distrubution pipework, the spluttering at the kitchen sink indicates air and the removal of this may be helping to improve the flow to the other taps,so you have either got a fault that is allowing air into system and\or a partially blocked pipe after the cylinder (this will not effect pressure but will effect flow) or any other of a numbner of system design faults or failure.

Some usful and maybe not so useful info for you

 

[kevplumb]

ehh i love apprentices

 

[Frank Haskins]

ehh i love apprentices

I thought the point of this forum was to be helpful. If you can't do that then why bother with useless spam like this ?

 

[denso13]

Souds like air due to low head of the storage cistern. The cold feed from the storage cistern to the HW cylinder (feeds in at the bottom) should be 28mm.
Don't know if this is something you can check but anything smaller could give these symptoms.

 

[Agile]

Frank, the first thing you need to do is to check the water level in the cistern in the loft is correct and pushing down the ball valve gives a nice strong flow of water to refill.

Next with a torch or a long cold arm look at or feel the outlet at the base of the tank to make sure that its not obstructed by a dead mouse or something.

A loft cistern should have a close fitting lid ! I keep a few in stock in case I encounter a cistern without one. They keep the rats, mice and squirrels out.

Tony

 

[denso13]

Agiles right, check those things first.