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Problems with my Water Tank

5 replies

Ijw1983 · 20/09/2016 15:10

Wondering if anyone could help me. My water tank in the loft stops filling with water when I use taps. Is this normal? If I have a long shower will I run out of water?

OP posts:
PigletJohn · 20/09/2016 16:46

Lift the lid and have a look inside.

Do you see one of these?

Push the float down. Does water run into the tank? How do you know it stops when you run the taps? Is it the cold taps you mean?

Does the tank have a label on it, saying e.g. 20 gallons or 100 litres? If not, about how big is it?

Now go into the bathroom. Turn on the hot tap. Press your thumb over the spout. Can you stop the flow?

Now the cold. Can you stop the flow?

Is your shower a mixer, or electric?

What colour is your hot water cylinder?

Ijw1983 · 21/09/2016 18:47

The float works fine.
The reason I know it stops, is because I was in the loft and it kept stop starting. Someone was washing their hands.
Yes cold tap.
I can't see a size on the tank but it's huge.

OP posts:
Ijw1983 · 21/09/2016 18:49

I can stop the flow of the hot water tap and the cold. Shower is a mixer.
Hot water cylinder is blue.

OP posts:
Ijw1983 · 21/09/2016 18:49

Thanks.

OP posts:
PigletJohn · 21/09/2016 19:56

A typical bath holds about 100 litres, so cold loft tanks are usually at least that big. It will not run out unless you use more than that, and it is not refilling, or it is refilling slower than you use it.

You can try filling a bucket under the shower, time it to full, calculate how many litres per minute it delivers. It might be, for example, 10lpm, meaning that you could have a 10-minute shower before the tank ran dry. If the tank is bigger than 100l it will take longer.

I think that most likely the ballcock stops filling when someone runs the kitchen cold (drinking water) tap, because that comes off the incoming watermain and is lower than the tank, so it steals all the flow. I do not think it stops filling when you run the hot taps or the cold bath tap., because, from your thumb test, I think they are fed from the tank.

The cause might be that you have an unusually small incoming waterpipe, perhaps a lead one that has been partly squashed flat; or it might be that someone has partially closed your internal or external stopcock, for example because they can't be bothered to repair a worn-out ballcock.

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