Thanks for your replies guys.I didn't know about the problem of sludge. Big
Wallop - thanks for your input, but it is definitely not a combi. The hot
water from the tank is a 22mm pipe. Running parallel are three 15mm pipes,
cold mains and 2 for the rads. I reckon the berk who plumbed it in felt the
hot 15mm pipe and thought it was the hot supply. I'm going to see if I can
get a "y" piece today and connect both pipes to the cold. Thanks again, I've
learnt such a lot from this newsgroup.
Ed
"BigWallop" wrote in message
...

"Ed Rear" wrote in message
...
When my daughter bought her flat a few months ago, the previous owner
left
the washing machine. It's a bit old but it was working ok till recently
when
it started to leak. Probably not worth trying to fix it so she bought a
new
one. When I connected it up today I found that the hot supply to the
machine
had been taken from the radiator circuit! I hasten to point out that
it's
a
gravity fed system, but I can't believe someone would do that. As a
temporary measure I have left the hot valve closed, so it will just use
cold fill, but will this cause problems?
Ed



So when the heating is off, the machine is only filling with cold water ?
Or is the machine filling with hot water when the heating is off ? No
offence, but are you sure the hot water is being drawn from the radiator
circuit and not being drawn from the hot water side on the boiler. What
type of boiler is it, Combi or conventional ?

I had someone tell me this type of story a little while ago, and when I
went
to investigate, I found that is was a combination boiler and the hot water
was being drawn off from the correct hot water demand outlet on boiler.
The
person was adamant that it was not and had to be shown that when the
heating
system was off, the hot taps were still being supplied with hot water from
the boiler correctly. Tracing the pipes back toward the boiler had
confused
them into thinking that the hot water was supplied directly from the
heating
system, when in actual fact, they just didn't know how a combination
boiler
worked.

Please don't take offence at these remarks, it is just that I had this
experience recently and wondered if you'd fallen into the same trap.


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