Low pressure upstairs cold

[Username25]

Hello,

Hoping someone can help me. We are having hardly any water coming out our cold taps in our bathroom. We have had this issue before while a neighbour a few doors down was having building work. It rectified itself after the work was complete.

Now it’s happened again. Can’t see any building work going on down our road.

Any advise on what could be causing this issue and any ways to remedy it?

We have lots of issues with our bathroom. The shower pump doesn’t work. We have bought a new one to fit but the hot stop tap doesn’t close so we can’t isolate the water in order to fit it. Can’t find the stop tap for the property. We’ve checked all the outside stop taps but none seem to be for our property.

We have had a plumber out who quoted us £1900 to re run all the pipes as apparently they’re wrong? It’s not something we can afford so we were hoping to just change the pump ourselves as we did in our last property but we haven’t been able to locate the stop tap so are unable to do this.

It’s really stressing me out. Trickle of cold water upstairs and no flush. Having to manually fill the tank to flush.

Thanks in advance for any help

Have you got a cold water tank in the loft or airing cupboard?

How old is the house?

Thanks for replying.

It’s a 70’s build. Cold water tank in the loft and hot in the airings cupboard. Boiler is hot air heating downstairs in the kitchen

Put your thumb on the spout of the bathroom hot tap. Turn it on. Can you hold back the flow?

Now do it with the cold tap. Can you hold back the flow?

And with the kitchen sink tap(s)?

It’s just one tap for hot and cold. Kitchen tap is fine. Cold comes out very strong.

Bathroom hot is strong but cold trickles.

Yes can hold back flow for both hot and cold in bathroom

Kitchen no can’t hold back the flow

then I think the bathroom cold tap is fed from your loft tank, and poor pressure is not due to anything on the watermain.

It is normal for a loft tank to give poor pressure, especially on the upstairs taps. If your shower and pump are fed from the tank, you do not need to turn off the external stopcock to change them; though you should find it anyway. There should be an internal stopcock under where the sink used to be when the house was built.

The tank should be fairly full, to near the top (but not as high as the overflow). There should be a waterlevel line marked on it.

It might be that something is obstructing the outlet from the tank. Go up with a torch and have a look. It should have a close-fitting plastic lid to keep dirt out. If not, it is possible for a scrap of loft insulation, windblown paper, or a dead pigeon to enter the tank.

Also look at the taps on the pipes coming out of the tank. Verify that (if present) they are both fully open then backed off half a turn to prevent seizing.

Post some pics please.

What colour is the hot water cylinder?

Ok thanks for this. I’ll have to wait til my other half is back from work for him to go in the loft.

The hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard is red.

That’s the airing cupboartx

Only the cold one of these works not the hot. So we can’t swap the shower pump. The house stop tap is behind the washing machine in the kitchen as I recall but would mean we’d need to drain the whole tank woudlnt we to be able to do any swapping of the shower pump upstairs? Because the hot still runs and we can’t isolate it upstairs

Can I just say that PigletinablanketJohn is a jolly good fellow.

Yes he’s very kind to take the time to help

when you look in the cold tank in the loft, you will find it has a ball float fill valve.

If you tie up the float with string to a roof timber above, to prevent it dropping when the water level drops, the tank will empty when you run the taps, because the valve will stop admitting water until you untie it.

As for the two valves you show, the red wheel handles indicate that they are gate valves. If one of the handles turns easily without affecting the water flow, it is pretty sure to be broken. This is quite common, especially with age and if they have been incorrectly been turned right to the stop.

Very likely this is the cause of your poor water flow.

You can fit a new valve if you are fond of plumbing, or get a plumber to do it. You must empty the tank first. According to the pipe diameter, the valve will be either 15mm (thick as your finger) or 22mm (thick as a banana). It looks like 22mm to me
(28mm is sometimes found in large or old houses)

Give the other tap a wind in and out to make sure it is still moving, and back it off from the stop.

www.screwfix.com/c/heating-plumbing/gate-valves/cat3830006?cm_sp=managedredirect--plumbing--gatevalves
The Pegler one is higher quality.

That’s great. Thank you for all this info. I think I’ll have a plumber come and do that.

have a look for dead pigeons first.

Ok will do. Do we do that by emptying tank by tying ball valve to ceiling or we can just investigate that by eye?

have a look with a torch.

if it needs cleaning, empty it first and leave the cold bathtap open (not the hot).

If you need a lid, measure it accurately. It is probably black plastic. If galvanised iron it may be rusty by now.

Hi again. Ok so we have investigated the loft. Not a very good set up to say the least. I have attached photos. Now I think it’s clear we need a new lid for the tank and to be honest a new tank. It looks fairly rusty.

In the meantime is there anything we can do to clear any blockages in the pipes or airlocks? We can’t see any visible blockages but with the state of the tank itself I imagine there probably is some blockages. The pipe that feeds the cold the tap at the top near the tank has seized so we were unable to test that.

The water in the sink tap just trickles then stops completely. Which is worse than it was beginning of the week.
As I said this issue happened last year and rectified itself randomalg in the end.

I think we will have a plumber come and quote to replace tank or fit lid and maybe re run pipes etc as I think that needs doing but will cost a fortune so I’m hoping to get the water at least working in the meantime?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Lorna

Here is the tank.

This is the inside of the tank. Not sure if that’s just the bottom of tank or debris?

These are the pipes that come off the tank. The tap for these are seized.

Looks like accumulated limescale to me.

Has it got a lid?

If not, measure it and buy one.

To clean it, empty it by tying up the float and running the cold bath tap

Use a clean plastic dustpan to scoop out the last of the water then a sponge. You can scrub it out with fairy liquid or similar. When you untie the float you can rinse it and let the water wash down and out of the cold bathtap. If there is any fairy left it will make bubbles when you run the tap, but it will not hurt you. It will not get into the kitchen cold (drinking water) tap.

Don't use any hot taps until you have finished cleaning and rinsing. This will stop it getting into the hot cylinder.

If you find any actual dirt, you can add water sterilising tablets as found in camping and caravan shops, but clean out all the dirt first.

The pictures are very small and I can't make out the valves. I'd remove the hessian and replace with foam pipe lagging.

www.wickes.co.uk/search?text=pipe%20lagging

The "bylaws" grade is thicker and better, if you have room for it. You can cut and mitre it with a bread knife.

Yes I’m sorry I’m not sure why the pictures have come up so blurry.

The tank doesn’t have a lid it has two bits of board over it. Also the tank doesn’t have proper cushioning round it. Sorry I’m not sure if the proper term.

Realistically do you think we will manage draining and cleaning it ourselves or is it better for us to have a plumber come and look? It sounds quite a big job. Worried we willl muck it up.

Thanks for your help. You’ve explained very well. I now understand much better about how the plumbing works. Literally had no idea about any of it before.