Hot water question

[Elton]

Sounds 'kin painful to me

 

Sounds like the onset of puberty to me

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

Some of you may know I work for a water treatment company - it used to be my primary job until we started the fishing company and now I do a few hours a day whilst Gary is busy packing the rods/reels up (what are little brothers for!).

 

Anyway if scale is a problem in your area then there are potential solutions to this (here we go). For a start one of your best options is an Ion Exchange water softener, but unless you seriosuly want to part with £400 then there is another very good option. I've got one I have to say, and in Lincolnshire where our water is very hard it makes a world of difference - the only bind is you've got to fill it with 25kg of salt a month (about £5 from a builders yard), but it certainly does prevent ALL scale problems in the house (I took the option of installing one when I bought a new boilier - seemed daft to blow a couple of grand on a boiler only for something like calcium and magnesium in the water to bugger it up).

 

OK, so there is a cheaper alternative. Dosing water with hexamata polyphosphate (sp) is definitely something to consider. A small dosing system is basically about £40 and can be fitted by virtually anyone with basic plumbing skills (a pipe cut and some compression fittings basically). These systems add a tiny (very tiny) amount of food grade scale inhibitor (sounds scarier than it really is) to the water supply which prevents scale forming minerals from binding together and forming on surfaces - the net result is scale free kettles, baths, sinks, toilets and pipework with the trade off that you are adding a tiny chemical to your water supply which is approved for drinking water. Cartridges for these systems from the guy I work for are about £15 every six months, but it is a pretty good system - brochure prices are wrong, actual price is £44.95 for the initial system and the cartridge. By the way - these are also a good idea if you rely on 'washing machine scale inhibitor tables' - certainly works out much more cost effective.

 

http://www.pozzani.co.uk/brochures/ct600.pdf

[corydoras]

Anyway if scale is a problem in your area then there are potential solutions to this (here we go).

 

What about these magnetic things that you clamp to the pipe? Do they work? Most of the houses in Normandy have ion exchange as standard (in new builds at any rate)

[chesters1]

"What are the tanks in the loft for?"

 

 

is it the isrealies implying your harbouring terrorists?

[Peter Sharpe]

Oh dear. When I said that the smaller tank looked as if water had never flowed through it, I meant that the water in inside it has a film over it and there's sludge in the bottom, suggesting that it has been standing for a very long time.

About bashing the pump with a hammer - I was taught that bya plumber

 

Anyway, although I know that the heating and hot water systems are totally separate, I had the bright idea of turning my pump up to maximum. It is one that came off a system feeding fifteen radiators and I only have two. When you put it on full, it sounds as if there's a train going by, but I thought it might dislodge any obstructions somewhere along the system. I ran it like that for about a minute and I now have hot water again. I have absolutely no idea what effect it might have had or even if it's just an amazing coincidence, but why should I care.

 

Thanks for the plumbing lessons everyone.

[ayjay]

Anyway, although I know that the heating and hot water systems are totally separate,

 

So, how is the hot water heated?

 

It's usually heated by the same water that heats the rads by flowing through a coil in the cylinder.

 

I have absolutely no idea what effect it might have had or even if it's just an amazing coincidence, but why should I care?

 

It's a problem waiting to bite you at the most inconvenient moment.

[chesters1]

our new system is strange ,despite it having a fancy computer telling us the time and function ,switching off the hot water only works if your not using the central heating ,if its so damned clever why doesent it know this and remove the the off knob for the hot water

another bloody annoying thing is you cant lower the hot water tank below 50 otherwise it has a fit (fifties the lowest mark but the knob can go lower) whats the point of heating it if you have to put cold water in to cool it

[Jim Roper]

The smaller tank will be the header tank for the water that flows through the radiators and the primary coil in the hot cylinder that in turn heats the water that you draw off at the hot taps.

The only water that flows into it is to replace that which has evaporated. The ball valve to this tank gets very little use and often siezes up, sometimes allowing the tank to dry out through the summer. That doesn't appear to be your problem if the tank is full.

The reason for having two water circuits, is to avoid passing new water through the boiler to replace that which has been drawn off at the hot taps.

Once the water has deposited it's calcium, through getting hot, it no longer continues to fir up the pipes(usually where the flow leaves the boiler) if it continues to circulate.

The motorised valve will be controlled by the programmer/controller and sends water through the radiators when the CH is switched on and also through the primary coil in the hot cylinder. The controller will get signals from thermostats and decide where and when to send the water from the boiler. The temperature in the hot cylinder may have priority over the CH temperature. When the CH is switched off, the hot water that goes through the boiler, will only go through the primary coil in the hot cylinder.

 

The expansion pipe, that you can see above the tanks in the roof, should go to a height above the water in the tanks of at least 1/17th of the total height of water in the system. If less than this, you may get the column of hot water flowing back into the top of the tank.

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

Cory

 

We do manufacturer a water conditioner which works on radio frequency technology, not magnets, however, the company I work for would probably be the first to admit several things, and we think we are a bit more up-front about it than many others.

 

For a start external conditioning devices are not softeners - the scale is still in the water - and many companies would have you believe that these devices 'soften' (rubbish). Next we offer a no quibble refund policy because the technology is certainly not proved to be absolutely 100% effective - yes - we get a great many customers achieve excellent results and are happy with the product, but you do get very odd customers who don't for whatever reason. You can take the 'shark' approach and leave them with something useless and disfunctional, or be responsible and under those conditons try and help the customer find an alternative solution. My very basic understanding is that these devices disrupt the physical structure of the calcium and magnesium ions in the water which makes them less likely to clump together - the net result being you get a finer white 'powdery' deposit, as opposed to lumps of scale, on things such as sinks, toilets and baths. This can be very easily flushed or washed away in comparison to scrubbing or descaling. Boiling water to boiling point reverts such changes in the majority of cases, meaning kettles still may fur up.

 

The difference between us and the others is that some folks are charging £250 plus for a radio technology water conditioner, and we charge £65. These are also very good (I'll testify to this) for preventing blanketweed in ponds, since blanketweed thrives on calcium and magnesium as nutrients, and in a hard water area (during summer) these are added to your pond when you 'top it up'. Fitted to a circulating water system they don't eliminate existing blanketweed (it's pretty hard stuff), but they certainly keep it back once you've netted it all out.

 

Proper water softeners though are a very good investment in my opinion - Apart from the salt they cost little to run and for £60 a year I'd wager they save you that on knackered appliances, central heating problems etc. The only issue is that up front cost of £400, but as I said, when you are on a boiler replacement anyway then it's money true, but I took the view that 2 to 3k was a twenty year investment (at least hopefully!).

[Leon Roskilly]

I had the bright idea of turning my pump up to maximum. It is one that came off a system feeding fifteen radiators and I only have two. When you put it on full, it sounds as if there's a train going by, but I thought it might dislodge any obstructions somewhere along the system. I ran it like that for about a minute and I now have hot water again. I have absolutely no idea what effect it might have had or even if it's just an amazing coincidence, but why should I care.

 

 

I've a couple of rads that no one could seem to sort out.

 

Then when Dunk came around to fit in a new boiler for me, he had a machine that flushed through the system at high pressure with some cleaner stuff.

 

They work fine now