Triton T80z shower issues after kitchen fit - coincidence?

[d00by]

Hi,

might be a coincidence about the kitchen refit but I thought I'd ask.

We recently moved house, and inherited what we believe to be a relatively new Triton T80z shower that's been working fine for the last few months.

The kitchen fitters have of course been turning off water and electricity as necessary and (coincidentally?) that's when the problems started.

Now, the shower sometimes takes several seconds before any water comes out of the head. Often the temperature is lukewarm and adjusting the dial either goes too hot or very cold - almost as if the variable resistor had worn its tracks and only gave good conductivity in certain positions.

I've read on here about testing the TCO, and will do that to rule it in/out but I wondered if there were any likely causes from having had the services on and off in the last week.

The low pressure light is not on, and the pressure when the shower is running seems the same as before the problems started.

Not knowing how these things work I wondered if some sort of air lock could have happened while the water supply was off? If this is a possibility, can I bleed it to remove it?

Any thoughts? Thanks, Pete

 

[seco services]

Clean the inlet filter.

 

[d00by]

Hi,

thanks for the advice. Well, I now have a damp leg and a slightly better idea of what's beneath the cover...

Annoyingly my installation has the cold feed pump running under the bottom case screw and inlet filter access so I had to remove the cold feed to get proper access.

The filter cage was lovely and clean so no clues there.

The TCO measured 0.8 Ohms across the 2 terminals on 200 Ohm range, which I think means it's showing continuity.

I noticed for the first time that I can get the low pressure window to show the fluorescent marker. Whether I'm on one red bar or two red bars, if the temperature dial goes below 2/3 of its travel then the window fills with orange and I hear the "kettle boiling" noise stop and the water goes cold.

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the internal or external mains stopcock hasn't been fully reopened after the works? I know they found the external one wouldn't seal (water company fixing that next week) and apparently the internal one wouldn't fully seal either so perhaps in trying to achieve closure something's changed, restricting flow or causing lower pressure?

I'll see tomorrow whether a stable temperature can be maintained after my messing around. Fingers crossed!

Cheers, Pete

 

[seco services]

yes check any stopcocks are fully open.

 

[d00by]

In case it helps anyone else, this is resolved. The internal stopcock wasn't fully open, but fixing this only helped a bit.

The external stopcock (once repaired and fully opened) restored full flow, and the shower now behaves as it used to - no waiting for the water to start, no sudden cold phases.

So, if your shower is playing up and there may have been tinkering with your stopcocks going on, worth checking they're fully reopened and functional!

HTH, Pete