Can someone help.

I need to try to change leaking/old bath taps.

The boiler system is conventional - hot water tank and cold tank in the
attic.

I understand that I need to turn the cold water tank off using the tap
attached to the tank. That sounds quite easy for the cold tap.

There's oddly no isolator tap however between the hot water cylinder and the
bath tap. I have never seen this before - there are no isolator taps at all
attached to the cylinder. Does this mean then that I have to completely
drain the hot water tank first? Sounds like an obvious question but it does
seem odd that there would be no way of isolating the tank.

On 23/09/2011 17:44, Gareth wrote:
Can someone help.

I need to try to change leaking/old bath taps.

The boiler system is conventional - hot water tank and cold tank in the
attic.

I understand that I need to turn the cold water tank off using the tap
attached to the tank. That sounds quite easy for the cold tap.

There's oddly no isolator tap however between the hot water cylinder and
the bath tap. I have never seen this before - there are no isolator taps
at all attached to the cylinder. Does this mean then that I have to
completely drain the hot water tank first? Sounds like an obvious
question but it does seem odd that there would be no way of isolating
the tank.

Get some rubber plugs (or if stuck a couple of decent sized carrots!),
and shove one in the *outlet* of the cold tank (i.e. reach into the
water from the inside and stuff the exit pipe), and another in the vent
pipe that should be hanging over it it from the HW cylinder. Run off
some water from the system, and you should find that stops both hot and
cold flow to the bath without draining anything down.

If you need to drain the pipes completely (say to solder etc) then open
the bath taps and turn on some other taps lower in the system. That
should let the pipes empty.

While you are at it, stick a couple of service valves under the bath so
next time its easy ;-)

--
Cheers,

John.

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On Sep 23, 5:44*pm, "Gareth" wrote:
Can someone help.

I need to try to change leaking/old bath taps.

The boiler system is conventional - hot water tank and cold tank in the
attic.

I understand that I need to turn the cold water tank off using the tap
attached to the tank. That sounds quite easy for the cold tap.

There's oddly no isolator tap however between the hot water cylinder and the
bath tap. I have never seen this before - there are no isolator taps at all
attached to the cylinder. Does this mean then that I have to completely
drain the hot water tank first? Sounds like an obvious question but it does
seem odd that there would be no way of isolating the tank.

You will need to tie the ball valve on the loft/water tank in the up/
off position and then open the hot tap until the water all drains out
of the tank upstairs. Then you can proceed.

The cold tap on the bath may be fed from the same tank, or direct from
the mains.

On 23/09/2011 17:44, Gareth wrote:
Can someone help.

I need to try to change leaking/old bath taps.

The boiler system is conventional - hot water tank and cold tank in the
attic.

I understand that I need to turn the cold water tank off using the tap
attached to the tank. That sounds quite easy for the cold tap.

The convention is for the cold tap in the bath to be fed from the loft
tank. Turn off the valve on the pipe going out or turn off the off the
supply to the tank & drain it.

It might be however that your bath cold tap is mains fed, in which case
turn off the main stopcock.

There's oddly no isolator tap however between the hot water cylinder and
the bath tap. I have never seen this before - there are no isolator taps
at all attached to the cylinder. Does this mean then that I have to
completely drain the hot water tank first? Sounds like an obvious
question but it does seem odd that there would be no way of isolating
the tank.

There should be a valve on the inlet to the tank - note that the inlet
is at the bottom, the outlet is at the top.

What happens is that water from the cold tank in the loft enters the hot
water cylinder at the bottom & forces water out from the top.

If no valves on the cylinder inlet, drain the cold tank in the loft.




--
Dave - The Medway Handyman www.medwayhandyman.co.uk