Cistern Slow to Fill Upstairs

Ziycon

One of the two cisterns upstairs is incredibility slow to fill (15 minutes slow), is there an easy fix I could do myself, its been like this since I moved in 3 odd years ago?
The second cistern fills fine, never had any issues.

phelixoflaherty

There should be a valve on the pipe leading to the cistern. turn it off

Screw off the part where the float hinges , there should be a rubber diaphragm that you can replace.

Sometimes they deform and reduce flow.

Not expensive at all

Ziycon

Great, thanks for the quick reply, problem now is there is no visible valve before the feeding pipe disappears into the wall :S

phelixoflaherty

Turn off main cold feed.

Either in hotpress or in attic.

But dont have heating running incase it needs extra water

slimjimmc

Presumably you've the job done but just in case...
There may be a dedicated stopcock for the cisterns which you can close but if none is found then you have options depending on how water is supplied to the cistern.

To check, turn off the mains feed* stopcock (usually in hotpress or under kitchen sink) and flush the toilet. If it refills then it's tank fed so you'll need to drain the large cold storage tank in the attic. To do this, either turn off the mains feed* stopcock or tie up the ball cock in the tank (the latter means you can keep mains supply to the kitchen/dishwasher). Then drain the tank by running any cold taps fed from the tank (e.g. bathroom cold taps).

Flush the toilet again to confirm supply to the cistern is off but expect a small amount to be left in the pipework afterwards. Then do your fix, turn on mains/un-tie the ball cock, and allow everything to re-fill.

*PS: Make sure all appliances using mains water are not running while mains water is off and there's water in the kettle for a cuppa in case the job runs into overtime and a cold beer for finishing time

handandy

Ziycon wrote: »

One of the two cisterns upstairs is incredibility slow to fill (15 minutes slow), is there an easy fix I could do myself, its been like this since I moved in 3 odd years ago?
The second cistern fills fine, never had any issues.

probably a bit of crud or grit that flowed from the attic tank down with the water .thats what was wrong with the toilet in my house same as your toilet there . it was a simple 5 minute job to clean it out and then toilet cistern filled up real fast again .

Ziycon

handandy wrote: »

probably a bit of crud or grit that flowed from the attic tank down with the water .thats what was wrong with the toilet in my house same as your toilet there . it was a simple 5 minute job to clean it out and then toilet cistern filled up real fast again .

Thanks for the advice folks, I just need to figure out which valve in the hot press, out of the 3 I know which is feeding the heating so just need to figure out the other two, think ones for the hot press tank so that leaves just one which I assume is the mains feeding the tank in the attic.

handandy

Ziycon wrote: »

Thanks for the advice folks, I just need to figure out which valve in the hot press, out of the 3 I know which is feeding the heating so just need to figure out the other two, think ones for the hot press tank so that leaves just one which I assume is the mains feeding the tank in the attic.

take off the cistern lid and flush toilet . also run the cold tap in the bathrom sink too . then turn off the stopcock valve and when you see the water in the cistern and sink stopping then you know you have turned off the correct stopcock valve.

Billy Bunting

If your not sure turn off both, the other is just supply to hot cylinder, then follow advice in post 2 but remove the diaphragme and there is a nozzle behind it, this is where Handandy's crud will be hidding.