Hot Water Tank in Child's Bedroom

[worriedmamma2021]

After 3 years of staying over at gran's house at the weekends and sleeping in the bedroom myself for 20 years, I've realized there is a hot water tank in my daughter's bedroom! Both my mum and gran think I'm being unreasonable about this. I think there are potential safety risks and she should not sleep in there until it's at least been serviced (hasn't been for 20 years!). The tank is part of the heating system attached to a rayburn downstairs and stored the hot water for showers etc. It's not really hot and we keep the airing cupboard locked but I'm still worried about a potential leak/explosion. Any thoughts on this? How do I move forward?

Are hot water tanks something that regularly explode?

For peace of mind ?
Get a service for peace of mind.
Ask the engineer any questions you want while they’re there.

I honestly don't think there's any danger. It's not as though the boiler is in the bedroom with the risk of carbon monoxide emissions.

Do you mean it's an immersion heater? My ds slept for his whole childhood in a room with an i.h in the room (airing cupboard) and it never crossed my mind to worry about it.

Never known one to explode, and I grew up in a house with a water tank in my bedroom. Mum's been living there for over 40 years and I'm certain if it had leaked or caused problems she'd have told me about it.

Not sure there's much you can do. Stop her sleeping there? Seems a bit over the top.

I think you need to stop worrying.
I assume it's a solid fuel Rayburn? The hot water cylinder should be an open vented tank: it will have an expansion pipe usually venting over an expansion tank above (normally in the loft). So if the water temperature in the tank gets too hot, it expands and overflows into the expansion tank, this relieves the pressure making it impossible to explode.

There is no danger at all to anyone in the room. It's not pressurised. It's no more dangerous than being in the same room as a hot bath, in fact less so in that you can't fall in. If it somehow developed a disastrous leak, which is unheard of, it's contents would end up in the room below. The truth is the biggest disaster that is likely to happen is a slow drip.

It may leak and you'll discover the problem slowly. It has the same potential to explode as your kettle , that is , none.

You keep it locked? That's unusually over protective. I think you are irrationally concerned about this.

There’s one in my kids room 🤷‍♀️

We have the hot water tank in a cupboard our bedroom. It has never been any issue and I don't perceive to to be a danger.

It won't explode. What exactly is it you want them to service about the tank? It's basically a big container of water with a pipe coming from the rayburn with heated water and another pipe to take the hot water to where it needs to be, expansion pipe if it's too hot. Unless it's leaking there's nothing to do to it.I used to have my hot water heated by my aga and they never looked at it during the annual service.

It doesn't sound like a pressurised tank, and therefore is very, very, very unlikely to explode or have any health risk at all.

I think you are overreacting.

You are right to be concerned that it is unserviced.
The risk isn't zero (apologies for DM link and upsetting story): www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-506604/Water-tank-fault-scalded-baby-girl-death-known-unreliable.html

I love my kids having the tank in their room. It keeps ir warm.

Just think of all the hundreds of thousands tanks that are in bedrooms around the country and how you don't hear of difficulties with them. It's as safe as can be, I don't even understand locking it, it's great for keeping spare bedclothes warm etc. Mine in in a large walk in closet in my hallway and I stole bedding, towels, throws, handbags and shoes in there. Have a small dog who will hide in there if the door is open, he loves the heat. You might need to address this over anxiousness.

[quote Saisong]You are right to be concerned that it is unserviced.
The risk isn't zero (apologies for DM link and upsetting story): www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-506604/Water-tank-fault-scalded-baby-girl-death-known-unreliable.html[/quote]
This is not the same thing at all.

[quote Saisong]You are right to be concerned that it is unserviced.
The risk isn't zero (apologies for DM link and upsetting story): www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-506604/Water-tank-fault-scalded-baby-girl-death-known-unreliable.html[/quote]
There are very different types of tank - the one in the story is a loft mounted cold tank that overflowed with hot water. Above the poor baby's room, open topped, and not part of the hot water system.

The one OP suggests is a heated cylinder - and as it is attached to a Rayburn it will not be a pressurised tank, it will be open at mains water pressure.

Perhaps moderators need to remove the dodgy link/poorly informed information?

@outdooryone I've reported the link, hopefully @MNHQ can remove it before it frightens OP unnecessarily.

This is not a useful worry. Yabu.