Water Issue

MrVestek

Hi all.

The setup I currently have at home is that the water is heated from a standard emmersion. There's a trinitron water pump connected to our taps as the water pressure is fairly crap...

The emmersion and water tank are on the same level as our apartment so once the shower hose is fully extended we get no water without running the pump.

I got up at 6:30am this morning to put on the emmersion to have a shower before heading to work...

When I went into the shower at 7am it was unusually hot. I couldn't adjust the temerature at all so I turned off the pump thinking that it was overheating.

To my surprise the cold and hot taps were both dispensing excrutiatingly hot water.

I immediately turned off the emmersion thinking that the thermostat may be fooked...

Tried the cold tap in the bathroom and that was scalding hot too but the kitchen's taps were fine.

Anybody any ideas as to what the possible cause could be?

Carlow52

kitchen cold tap is from rising main so will be cold.

For this situation its possible that the immersion boiled and then overflowed back into cold tank.

else the internal partition in the pump is broken allowing hot water across to cold: the water will still flow in pump even when off

MrVestek

Double dutch to me mate.

I kinda had a feeling that the hot water had overflowed back into the cold tank but to be honest the plumbing in this place leaves alot to be desired... considering the fact that the water tank is on the same level as our apparently preventing gravitiy from doing it's job.

There is no internal pump as far as I can see. The water pump that we have for the shower is just a shower booster pump with suckers on the taps for water supply:

http://www.tritonshowers.co.uk/booster-pumps/t40i.aspx

Joey the lips

Yip fairly certain whats wrong and its a classic sign of old times hitting on the new...

You have an open heating system prob a back boiler in the sitting room. What has happened is your immersion is working well and you left it on... the hot water has risen up your expansion pipe and into the tank in the attic... now your cold and hot water become hot...

Important... this can lead to the introduction of legonaires disese...

Do not do this again...

solution...Fit an immersion timer...

MrVestek

Ok thanks for the advice. We're actually living in an old converted 3 story house which is now one apartment on each level.

The water tank is on the same level as us and there's no back burner but I hear what you're saying.

We've requested so much work to be done on this place... I reckon the landlords will go spare if we ask to fit a timer to the boiler, heh.

The water was only left heating for a half hour though which I don't understand. We've left it on for longer than this in the past and this hasn't happened.

Is it difficult to get a timer installed on the emmersion?

Buford T Justice

No, they're very simple to fit


How do the other two apartments heat the water if you have the immersion controls

MrVestek

There's one water tank feeding 3 immersions, one for each apartment. The water tank is in our hot press

ntpm

Achilles wrote: »

There's one water tank feeding 3 immersions, one for each apartment. The water tank is in our hot press

I would aggree with the earlier thread by carlow52.
I suspect the internal thermostat on your immersion may be faulty.
The cylinder hot water is getting too hot expanding up the vent pipe and heating the cold water cistern/ tank.
Have a look at the cold water tanks and see if there's hot water/ steam coming from it.
Also ask your neighbours if they are experiencing hot water in their cold water pipes like you.
If they are then it highlights a severe safety issue and do not use the immersion until you get it fixed,
Worst case scenario is that the Cold water tank could warp and split flooding the place with possibly hot water, this occured in the Uk. (Was fatal in a couple of cases:mad:)