Hot water problems

gummibear

Hi all, live in an estate and have big lime-scale probs. immersion takes about 3 weeks to heat a pint of water. electric shower thinks i am an egg and is trying to boil me. thats long term problems but latest thing is no water coming from our hot taps in any room. the water is not being heated or anything but the flow has stopped. might get a mug full initially from some of them but then it dries up while the cold taps are all working fine... checked the tank and all seems fine. any ideas?

ART6

With the exception of the immersion heater this doesn't sound like a limescale problem to me. If I'm preaching to the converted, then excuse me, but I assume your house has two systems -- the central heating circuit that heats radiators and the water in your storage cylinder, and the domestic circuit that supplies hot water from the cylinder and cold water from the tank. Now, the first circuit is a closed one and is not succeptible to limescale, so forget that. The second one requires the immersion heater to be in water from the mains, so it could easily become scaled to the extent that it won't work any more. One (and slightly dramatic) way of dealing with that is to drain the cylinder, turn on the immersion heater for a few seconds, turn it off and turn on the mains again. That causes the scale on the immerser element to crack off, but it is not a task for the faint hearted. Alternatively you could take the safer option and withdraw the immerser and clean it.

Next issue is why the shower boils you. That happens because it isn't getting enough water, and it should be shutting off before you boil. If it's an electric shower then it will be supplied direct from the header tank in the roof or from the mains, and so is not dependant on the hot water cylinder. Since it is boiling you I would guess it isn't using the cylinder.

If nothing is coming out of your hot taps (or only trickling) and if no water is getting to your shower, I would think you have a blockage problem somewhere between the roof header tank and the house plumbing. Even in a high chalk area what you are describing is unusual. If it is a blockage or restriction, one way of dealing with it is often:

If your kitchen tap comes directly off the mains (they usually do) then connect a piece of hose between the kitchen cold tap and hot tap. Open both taps and wait until water flows out of the attic tank overflow. Take the dead bird out of the tank and roast into a pie.:)

Best guess I'm afraid, but feel free to talk if it's any help.

gummibear

Cheers for that. have mixer tap in kitchen sink but handbasin in downstairs WC comes off mains(for some strange reason) so might try it there! On closer inspection found some small pieces of timber in tank but doubt if they could've gotten into pipework. will investigate further. am renting house from a friend of a friend during construction of our own so not too pushed about other problems. will be dismantling shower someday soon to check it out. anyway thanks for great response!:)