Post here if your boiler has failed or your pipes have frozen!

devais

Woohoo!!! Water just came back after 2 and a half weeks without it!!! Its heaven to be able to flush the toilet properly:D:D

RedLedbetter

RedLedbetter wrote: »

Anybody know how to remove the lid from the water meter box lid (http://www.iplgroup.ie/assets/miscmedia/WSC-R%2001%20Spec.%20Sheet.pdf)? We have the WSC-R standard with the square key.

I called up the company (IPL) this morning to ask, as I can get the key to turn anti-clockwise 45 degrees, but while the lid shifts about it will not lift - IPL said just to keep trying as it might be jammed, GREAT! I poured boiling water over it, hit around the edges with a hammer, but still not lifting, just shifting about.

Anyone get these lids off, if so how? Or any advice, as desperate :-(

Any help greatly appreciated.

Looking at that pdf, it appears you need to completely unscrew the "key", there are two openings at the top, one for controlling the water and the other for removing the lid.

Are you turning the screw next to the words "Lock Point".

I've seen large magnets used to help lift the lid after the screw has been removed.

positron

In Blanchardstown, returning to the house after a week, and no running water in the taps hot or cold - and found the tank in the attic had frozen over in many layers. After nearly 6 hours of chiseling out large slabs of ice and heating up the tank with a halogen lamp, and pots of boiling water and an electric heater in the hot press etc etc - everything was put back to normal, and no leaks!! Phew!!

kleefarr

devais wrote: »

Woohoo!!! Water just came back after 2 and a half weeks without it!!! Its heaven to be able to flush the toilet properly:D:D

Oh dear God. I'm really glad for you.
We only went without for two and a half days. That was enough.

Oliverdog

It's quite unsettling to think of the gap between living normally and living like a pack of savages - I'd say about 10 degrees celsius ! :eek:

BigAl81

Hey,

Had brown sludge coming from the kitchen tap 3 days ago, tried it again yesterday and it ran clear and is fine now? I had contacted the council and they replied just now...

"The water in you area should be alright at present, you may experience low water pressure. If you run the water for a while it should come clear. If you continue to have problems please contact Customer Care at 01 4149000"

Does anyone know how the water would turn to complete sludge and back again without there being a pipe burst? I was working under the assumption that the pipe burst, sludge got in, and then the water underground froze, preventing more sludge getting in, so when the thaw comes I was expecting bad news, the council say run the tap and it will clear.... and it did!!

Go Team!

Zak Flaps

Oliverdog wrote: »

Many portable heaters sold in hardware stores have built-in frost-stats of thermostats which have a 'frost' setting (which usually kicks in when the temperature falls below about 40F) - some are designed to keep plants alive in greenhouses. These would be OK for your purpose - be careful where you position it near the tank (don't risk fire !)

thanks for that oliverdog...

Graces7

You equate modern plumbing with civilisation?

Interesting idea.

A lady in the US was horrified once t hear that in one place I lived in Ireland, when my water supply was run-off and rain, there were months i had to use the great outdoor bathroom with the blue or starry ceiling.. "You mean.. squatting in the woods???"

I did and I do.

We who have been without water etc these last weeks have been eminently very far from being savages.

Oliverdog wrote: »

It's quite unsettling to think of the gap between living normally and living like a pack of savages - I'd say about 10 degrees celsius ! :eek:

Oliverdog

We've been without it since just after Christmas too. My comment was light-hearted. I sincerely hope you'll soon return to normal up there.

devais

Being without water for 2 and half weeks definitely helped me to appreciate the water we all take for granted thats for sure:D

Unfortunately my mother is still without water (hers went the same time as mine). Luckily a friend with a trailer delivered a huge water tank with a tap at the front. We have tried every trick to get her water going again including pouring warm water down the stop cock at the mains but the water is just sitting in it stagnant - I'm presuming this is not normal

Graces7

Oliverdog; sorry if I was too..

There are people who do think that..

Was waiting for someone to come and see what was going on in the loft; we have a totally crazy amateur plumbing system here and there had been some water coming in through a ceiling.

Thankfully... and I heard him splashing ice around up there! - it is an overflow pipe on the tank that is loose. Why am I not surprised? he has not managed to get it back on, but says that it is only the extreme weather that caused it to leak.

We have left a plastic tray underneath.

He said that for a house so old, we have got off very lightly; that is it only the lack of insulation up there that prevented more serious damage and that the heat from the fire has saved us.

That surprised me.. But it makes sense?

Anyways, the toilet has been filling today and there was water part of the day... frozen again now. but I got all my bottles filled.

Hoping all here get their water back soon. It is a tiring business.

Cherrycola

Seems the older houses with lack of attic insulation have definitely faired better where freezing pipes are concerned.
At least we all know what to do next time, leave those attic doors open!

kkontour

RedLedbetter wrote: »

Anybody know how to remove the lid from the water meter box lid (http://www.iplgroup.ie/assets/miscmedia/WSC-R%2001%20Spec.%20Sheet.pdf We have the WSC-R standard with the square key.
....

does it also have a triangular key,
mine looks similar be has both square and triangular keys.
the square one turns 45 deg to turn off/on the water.
the triangular key rotates several time to open the lid. I used a pliers but it took a little effort. Mine has no meter but a plastic pipe instead.
I removed the pipe, attached an acorn bend to a hose pipe, jammed it onto the incoming water connection using a wodden wedge and attached the other end to my outside tap.
Hey presto, Water:D

Sponge Bob

Cherrycola wrote: »

At least we all know what to do next time, leave those attic doors open!

Instead of those stupid green energy saving lights that emit no heat you should put an infra red bulb up there in winter and put the light near the pipes not in the far corner of the attic .....where it will be of some use .

kkontour

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Instead of those stupid green energy saving lights that emit no heat you should put an infra red bulb up there in winter and put the light near the pipes not in the far corner of the attic .....where it will be of some use .

And attach it to a frost stat to ensure it comes on automatically when the temp goes low.

Oliverdog

Graces7 wrote: »

we have a totally crazy amateur plumbing system here

Our amateur plumbing system was put in by professionals ! Everything's fine in the house (which is 4 years old) but the mains supply is above ground, threaded through the hedge from the mains 200 yards away. Christmas day saw me cutting all the brushwood down to retrieve the pipe and lay it on the grass in the garden. Since then, I've been making visits (usually under cover of darkness - the shame, the shame !) with a hot air gun trying to thaw it out. At the end of all this, I'll bury it in a trench, but the ground is like marble.
So we've been down to the river with buckets, and conserving this water via cooking, washing up, and finally down the toilets.
When we have a glass of water, we'll raise it to you and all those many others who are much worse off than we are.

Irish Steve

The longer term answer to frozen roof pipes is to make sure that the tanks are properly insulated, I've seen way too many cases where tanks have been put in totally inappropriate places. In the Dublin area, there's tanks mounted outdoors on flat roofs, and the same is true of many of the prefab schools, including some very recent builds.

What should work without problems is to have the tanks in the roof, with NO insulation under them, The tank, (or tanks) need a lid on them, and then ensure that there is a good coverage of insulation, either thick polystyrene insulation, or fibreglass insulation (or both) AROUND AND OVER the tank, that ties in to the ceiling insulation below the tank level, so the heat that comes through the uninsulated ceiling is then trapped around the tanks. All the feed and supply pipes in the roof need to be insulated, and for additional safety, they should not be copper. Qualpex or similar may be OK in severe weather, the ideal in areas exposed to frost is the heavy wall alkathene pipe.

Good insulation will work as well as putting infra red or similar lights or heaters in the roof space.

All of the above is related to the older concept of insulation at ceiling level, where the attic space is regarded as "cold space". If the house is recent construction, it may have the insulation at external rafter level, and in such cases, the attic space should be warm.

The most critical aspect of attic temperature is to try and minimise the draughts, if wind can take the heat out, this will make it worse.

A frost stat mounted in the roof, or somewhere that will correctly detect frost, and that will start the heating out of normal time switch hours is also a help, but unfortunately, they don't seem to have been a common item in Irish heating design.

Hope this helps.

Steve

Graces7

Isn't that the truth?

I wonder often also re the hot water tank cover; with a good one on, it becomes no longer a hot press.

This house so far has escaped the BER rating; it would rate very low indeed. But I am thankful so!

Cherrycola wrote: »

Seems the older houses with lack of attic insulation have definitely faired better where freezing pipes are concerned.
At least we all know what to do next time, leave those attic doors open!

BostonB

Irish Steve wrote: »

...All the feed and supply pipes in the roof need to be insulated, and for additional safety, they should not be copper. ...

Why so?

I noticed on one my tanks when full it pops the lid off, as the tanks swell with the weight of the water. Any soutions? Is this a common issue?

Sponge Bob

Irish Steve wrote: »

The tank, (or tanks) need a lid on them, and then ensure that there is a good coverage of insulation, either thick polystyrene insulation, or fibreglass insulation (or both) AROUND AND OVER the tank, that ties in to the ceiling insulation below the tank level, so the heat that comes through the uninsulated ceiling is then trapped around the tanks. All the feed and supply pipes in the roof need to be insulated, and for additional safety, they should not be copper. Qualpex or similar may be OK in severe weather, the ideal in areas exposed to frost is the heavy wall alkathene pipe.

Very good advice, I would rephrase one bit of it slightly .

AROUND AND OVER

and GENERALLY NEVER UNDER the tank unless it is very high in the attic ( the warm air needs to escape up from below to heat it)

You sort of build a half pyramid of fibreglass up the sides of the tank with aeroboard on top which stops spiderwebs and grot getting in too. This is not really possible if the tank is raised a lot in the attic on a platform but lots of tanks are laid across the joists directly so it will work.

You average attic has 300mm deep joists with 300mm of fibreglass between them.

This will naturally gravity settle over the years unless you 'fluff it' up and what WAS 300mm becomes between 200-250mm in about 10-15 years ......according to quality. Topping it up is a good idea in any house that was built years ago.

As many pipes are laid across joists or just above them you could put the next layer of fibreglass across the top of the pipes and sandwich them in fibreglass while improving the insulation.

Finally the 'small' tank in the attic is an EXPANSION tank for hot water from central heating....vey hot water sometimes. Some are plastic so you can put a slab of aeroboard across the top usually but some are metal and the aeroboard could melt ...so be careful with it.

Some get a bit 'bubbly' especially in older/taller houses and will blow the aeroboard off. Be careful.

You may even have to build an 'igloo' of aeroboard around a tank but not touching it. Then it is hard to infra red heat the damn thing of course

Irish Steve

Copper doesn't give in the same way that Qualpex or any of the other plastic pipes can. so if (or when) it freezes, the chances of a split are higher, there's not the flexibility. Also, in marginal situations, copper is a better conductor of heat (or absence of heat) than plastic, so more chance of freeze getting to the contents.

If the tank lid is being pushed off by the tank flexing, the only thing I can think of that will stop that would be to get some cheap load straps that can be used to strap the thing on, as they have clamps that won't let go in the same way, and can be put under tension. If you've got any, (too expensive if you have to buy a roll just for this job) the other thing would be several short straps made of galvanised strip metal and some stainless steel self tappers, use them to make a retaining strap so that it can't hop off. Make sure that if you put any self tappers through the tank wall that they are below the overflow level to avoid any risk of a minor weep round the screw thread.

That said, some elastic luggage straps with some polyproplene string (binder twine) could be used to make a retaining strap, as long as you can pass it under the tank as well. All depends on what the access is like, mine are in the upper section of a dormer roof, so there's damn all space to work in beside and above them due to the steepness of the roof pitch.

Steve

mud

Just found this thread

I've been without water (and therefore central heating) for a week now

Been holed up in my bedroom with a superser for most of that week

Tried filling the cistern with a bucket of water but alas the cistern is full . . . of ice.

The sun shone all day today but no thaw for me.

BostonB

How come you house gets so cold?

mud

BostonB wrote: »

How come you house gets so cold?

It's old and badly (read not) insulated

And as I mentioned no central heating.

It's gone as low as -12 here some nights. (east limerick)

Sponge Bob

mud wrote: »

It's old and badly (read not) insulated

Jaysus, better turn the water off outside if the tank is full of ice. I fear the effects of the thaw that is starting right now.

mud

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Jaysus, better turn the water off outside if the tank is full of ice. I fear the effects of the thaw that is starting right now.

It's the toilet cistern that's got the ice in it

Sponge Bob

what about the tank in the attic ?

mud

Sponge Bob wrote: »

what about the tank in the attic ?

It's a very weird set up,

was asking my Dad about it (as he owns the house)

He says there's nothing up in the attic and that the water comes from a well.

I really don't have a clue about it!

I think I may be moving soon though . . . free rent is great but not at the price I'm paying for it at the moment

Sponge Bob

Ah right, the good news is that there is nothing to burst up there but the bad news is that it could be frozen outside and inside. The southern and western parts of the country are in an aggressive thaw right now.

Graces7

Sounds like here; no idea where the water comes from; there is a pipe sticking out of the ground at the back.. sure it cannot be mains so far out?

The piping then runs first to the kitchen then branches off round to the bathroom side; when i flush the toilet, the whole of that pipe vibrates as it refills

If it is a well, there is no pump?

And no central heating etc; and we pay rent.

Less than we did when we first came;)

The superser is great.

And a coal fire in the afternoons.

mud wrote: »

It's a very weird set up,

was asking my Dad about it (as he owns the house)

He says there's nothing up in the attic and that the water comes from a well.

I really don't have a clue about it!

I think I may be moving soon though . . . free rent is great but not at the price I'm paying for it at the moment