Hot water

[1930sHousewife]

We have recently had new central heating installed with a Worcester Greenstar system boiler yet for some reason it now takes a good 30 seconds or more of running the hot water tap for the water to stop running cold.

Does anyone know if this is normal or whether we have a fault somewhere in the system?

Thanking in advance

What colour is your hot water cylinder, and how far is it from the tap you are timing?

Is this tap in the bathroom?

How long does the hot bath tap take?

Good morning, our cylinder is white and it is in the loft. The furthest tap is in the downstairs cloakroom at the back of the house, so the boiler is 2 floors above it.
There is still a long delay even when using the bathroom tap with the boiler almost directly above it.
Our apartment has a similar system and that gave us immediate hot water from the tap, and we just assumed it would be the same

30 seconds doesn't seem very long to me, our kitchen tap takes about that long to become hot.

30 seconds seems fine. My combi boiler has a button on it 'Eco', if I turn it off the water runs hot in about 5 seconds but this will cost more as the boiler has to keep a certain amount of water heated and ready for use.

P.s my boiler is a Worcester too, not sure about the Greenstar though, it's only about 3 years old.

Thank you for your replies, that has settled my mind. I guess we'll get used to it in no time.

the delay will be due to the distance of pipe that the hot water has to travel though, and the cold pipe absorbing heat from the water until it has warmed up.

If you have a small or economical tap with reduced flow, it will take longer to draw the hot water through. I would expect the adjacent bathroom to be quicker than the distant utility, and I would expect a bathtap to be quicker than a basin.

It is possible to use a circulating pump and a return pipe to keep hot water flowing round the pipes, but this is very wasteful of energy as the pipe will act as a long thin radiator.

A cylinder in an unheated loft will have especially cold pipes, and they will be longer than if the cylinder is nearer the taps.

The effect will be worse in winter when the pipes are colder. It is useful to put Climaflex or similar insulation on all pipes.

Thank you PigletJohn, that makes sense. I will have a look into putting Climaflex on the pipes.