Water warm in hot tap in one room & cold in another?

Tidyone1

Hello everyone,

I have two problems with the water in our house. We have oil central heating.

Firstly the water in the hot taps in the house does not heat when I turn on the heating. We are new to this house so I'm not sure if it ever did but I assume it's strange that the water doesn't heat when I turn on the heating. What could be wrong?

Then to make things stranger in the main bathroom I've noticed after the heatings been on that the hot tap when I turn it on sometimes seems to have warm water for a few seconds & then goes cold.

Any advise would be gratefully accepted.

Oh when I turn on the immersion the water in all the taps gets warm.

Thanks everyone.

PK27

Tidyone1 wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I have two problems with the water in our house. We have oil central heating.

Firstly the water in the hot taps in the house does not heat when I turn on the heating. We are new to this house so I'm not sure if it ever did but I assume it's strange that the water doesn't heat when I turn on the heating. What could be wrong?

Then to make things stranger in the main bathroom I've noticed after the heatings been on that the hot tap when I turn it on sometimes seems to have warm water for a few seconds & then goes cold.

Any advise would be gratefully accepted.

Oh when I turn on the immersion the water in all the taps gets warm.

Thanks everyone.

It's possible your heating system doesn't pass through a coil in the hot water tank. It's unusual but I've seen it a few times. On your hot water cylinder, you'll have a pipe coming down from attic into the bottom of the cylinder, and a pipe coming off the top. Ignore these, and see if there's another two pipes coming out of the sides, about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way up. If you don't have these, then your heating won't heat the water, you're immersion only. If you have got them, the balancing valve could be closed, one of the side pipes should have a valve with a red or maybe black handle, turn this anti clockwise to open. A pic could make things easier if you can......
I reckon you're getting a little hot water in bathroom because the hot pipe into the bathroom is running alongside a heating pipe at some point and the heat from heating pipe is transferring to your hot water, but obviously it will only heat in the area they are near so you only get a tiny bit of hot in the tap

Tidyone1

Thanks a million PK27, you have worked wonders! I was taking photos of the pipes etc. today & looking at all the valves so I decided to turn on off...this turned off the water in the hot tap (still haven't worked out how to turn off the cold tap!) so then I turned on another valve & within minutes I could feel the tank getting warm. Brilliant hot water this evening. What a treat! And of course a saving seeing as I'd have the heating on anyway. I can't think why it was ever turned off really! I can't thank you enough for taking the time to answer my initial question.

Kind regards,
Tidyone1!

PK27

No problem, one thing I will say is you should keep that valve that opened the hearing water into the tank down low. Turn it fully closed (clockwise) and then just open it maybe 2 turns. The water will still heat, and to the same temperature, but turning the valve down will restrict it a little and allow more heating flow to go to the rads. You can open it fully if you choose, it just means the tank will rob a lot of the boilers heat until the tank heats up, and the rads will take longer to heat. Fully closed and then opened two turns will give a good balance between the two

Tidyone1

I'm sorry PK27, I thought I replied to you but obviously my I.T. ability is as good as my plumbing!!! I did as you suggested & turned the valve off & on again by 2 turns...it worked a treat. Thanks again for taking the time to reply to me. It made a big difference to our household. Kind regards.