Unplanned works; new hot water system!

On inspecting the heating / hot water systems (DHW) when we first got the keys we’d noted that the hot water cylinder was getting a little tired, and would probably need to be replaced at some point relatively soon.

What we weren’t quite expecting was to come into the house at around 3pm on a Sunday afternoon to find a steady stream of water dripping from a hairline crack around the top of the cylinder!

Needless to say, getting a plumber out at this sort of time is virtually impossible without needing a second mortgage, so we turned off the water; contained the leak and headed off to Wickes & Screwfix to round up enough fittings & parts to replace the cylinder.

Having stocked up, the old cylinder was drained – requiring a series of holes to be drilled in the side of the cylinder to siphon the water out (drain cock was of course, seized) & the pipework disconnected.

    

With cold supply, hot water loop, house hot feeds & immersion heater wiring all disconnected / cut & capped as needed, and the cylinder virtually empty it was a relatively simple affair to remove it from the airing cupboard…

… at which point it became obvious that the cylinder was far beyond its best!!

    

Something you don’t see every day… One empty airing cupboard..!

With the old cylinder gone, work began to prepare the new cylinder & rework the existing plumbing to tidy things up & fit the new cylinder as obvious nothing on the new one was in quite the same position as the old.

As I’m not entirely sure I trust push-fit enough to use it on the primary feeds from the boiler, all joints needed to be soldered… which accounted for a substantial chunk of the installation time as unfortunately all the old pipework was covered in numerous layers of old paint which needed to be removed to reveal bare copper.

The existing 28mm feed /return pipes from the boiler presented their own challenges…  New 28mm copper doesn’t really bend too well, and most cylinder fittings don’t accept 28mm fittings.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply