Hot water taps airlock

kirving

Hi,

Installing a new shower mixer the other day, I turned off the hot water to allow me to do the job. During this, I think someone tried to turn on another hot water tap, and left it open when no water came out.

Would this have let air into the system?

Anyway, the problem I now have is that there must be an airlock in the system, and no water will flow out of any hot water tap.

By blocking the shower head with my hand, and turing it to medium, I can make cold water flow from the the shower, into the hot water system and then out another hot water tap, but once the air is flushed out and I try to turn just a hot tap on, the problem quickly returns.


The hot water cylinder is fed from the attic tank as far as I know, with a boiler in the kitchen. The boiler can also heat up the cylinder as if it's a radiator.

Rads all work fine, and there is hot water in the tank.

Should there be another bleed valve somewhere else which I can use to bleed the system, or am I approaching it all wrong?

Thanks for your help,
Kevin

LIFFY FISHING

Go to your kitchen sink, if you have a sink mixer turn on the hot side only, you should have no water comming out, place the palm of your habd tightly over the water outlet, now turn on the cold water fully, hold the tap out firmly for 20 seconds and take your hand away, now turn off your cold water anx u should b sorted, you might have to try this a couple of times , it nearly works first time always though

Robbie.G

LIFFY FISHING wrote: »

Go to your kitchen sink, if you have a sink mixer turn on the hot side only, you should have no water comming out, place the palm of your habd tightly over the water outlet, now turn on the cold water fully, hold the tap out firmly for 20 seconds and take your hand away, now turn off your cold water anx u should b sorted, you might have to try this a couple of times , it nearly works first time always though

Only works on a single flow mixer but its worth a try

kirving

Yeah, I've got a dual flow tap in the kitchen so it's very difficult to do that. The idea here being to force the air from the system from the ground up?

Robbie.G

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Yeah, I've got a dual flow tap in the kitchen so it's very difficult to do that. The idea here being to force the air from the system from the ground up?

Not from the ground up its the water main as its higher pressure than the domestic cold.Another way is if your confident enough is to go to the hot press turn off the feed to the cylinder disconnect it at the valve put a bucket or basin under it and open valve until you get a decent spurt of air out close up everything and then turn on and away you go

Calibos

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Yeah, I've got a dual flow tap in the kitchen so it's very difficult to do that. The idea here being to force the air from the system from the ground up?

Find a plastic bottle whose neck provides a tight fit over the dual flow tap nozzle. (EG. Mouthwash/shampoo bottle etc)

Wrap a towel around the tap/neck of bottle because if you have high mains pressure you'll probably still get some spray.

This didn't work straight off when I had what I thought was an airlock. The mouthwash bottle redirected mains water ended up flowing out of the overflow back into the attic tank. Got my brother to do the Mouthwash bottle thing at the kitchen sink while I was in the attic with my hand wrapped in a towel and my finger stuck up the overflow pipe like the dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. Wherever the blockage was it ended up coming back up the attic tank outflow.....A bunch of feathers and detritus. :eek: Needless to say the tank and pipes got a thorough cleaning and disinfecting before use again, but I had got my hot water going again

kirving

Thanks for the replies, got it sorted through a bit of messing opening and closing valves and forcing mains water from the garden hose through the (dual flow) tap. Tried the bottle trick, but it was too difficult to get a good seal on the square tap.

Calibos

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, got it sorted through a bit of messing opening and closing valves and forcing mains water from the garden hose through the (dual flow) tap. Tried the bottle trick, but it was too difficult to get a good seal on the square tap.

Sorry, I didn't realise we were dealing with square pegs and round holes