Total Plumbing System Meltdown - Help please

Rob113

Im badly in need of help.
Came home from work today to an absolute nightmare. I think i have 3 seperate plumbing problems.

1. Hot tap in downstairs toilet not working at all. Not even a dribble of water coming out of it. Every other hot tap in the house working perfect with normal pressure. Cant for the life of me think what could have gone wrong.

2. Cold tap in downstairs toilet not working at all. Not even a dribble of water. Downstairs Toilet not filling either. There is a bit of history to this problem i think. The pressure in the cold taps in the 3 toilets in the house has been very poor for the last month or so. I think there may have been an air lock or something. Is it possible that the air lock could have moved down the pipes so that it is only affecting the downstairs toilet and cold water tap? Every other cold water tap and toilet is filling perfectly.

3. Oil Central Heating system has broken down. Just stopped working. I thought at first it may have been an air lock so went out to bleed it. I bled it it came on worked for 10 mins heated all the rads in the house then stopped working again. Went out to bleed it again but there doesnt seem to be any power going to it. There was no red light on the reset button. Tried turning the temperature gauge up and down but nothing. There was no sound from the pump at all.

Are all three problems connected? I cant see how they could be, but im not a plumber so havent really got a clue. Any help would be much appreciated - especially on the heating. I have an open fire but no back boiler so other than the oil there is no way of heating the house. Havent a bean to bring a plumber in.

items

Plumbing downstairs, if below ground, could possibly be frozen, so many days of big freeze is catching up, not sure about air locks, plenty of pressure behind water coming from attic tank, air locks more associated with hot or upstairs cold.

Above boiler burner is a control box, left of box you should see a small black cap, unscrew cap, under cap is high limit reset button, press it, if button makes clicking sound your boiler locked out on high limit. Boiler should run again. Turn temp down to coldest setting, check circulation pump is running, if you think its running, turn up heat only enough for burner to come on, check some rads for signs of heat, if they start heating bring up thermostat a bit more. Do everything gradual and observe boiler for entire duration.

Cold weather could be affecting boiler, oil temp could be to low, you might have turned boiler up but heat could not dissipate so boiler over heated.

Boiler locking out on high limit must be observed and treated with caution.

Best of luck, hope it comes back on.

Rob113

Thanks for that ill try it in the morning. There is a small black button beside the temperature knob inside the boiler. i pressed that a couple of times and nothing happened. Ill look for the black screw cover in the morning. Whats worrying me is that i couldt hear any water circulating through the pump. There wasnt a sound from the boiler at all. Its as if the whole thing just died. The pipes underground shouldnt have been frozen this evening as the heating worked earlier in the day and then for a few minutes when i came in from work. Im afraid of them freezing overnght though.

None of the pipes for down stairs seem to be underground. The pipes for both taps in the downstairs toilet come out of the wall directly behind the tap. The kitchen taps are working fine. Thats what i cant get me head around. I cant see how both could go at once.

items

No bother, many reasons why boiler would stop, try to have it running at lower temp first, even from cold, you can find problems that way, with out risking by adding heat. If boiler wont come back on at all, fuse might have blown

Strange one with taps, for hot, if you have enough pressure in mains along with a mono type sink tap, open hot side, put palm of hand over spout to completely block it then open up mains, pressure will travel back up hot side a force air out vent in attic. Make sure all other hot taps are closed. If its still not working trying forcing mains into hot with just problem hot tap open.

Not sure what you can do for cold, you'll need to turn off cold, disconnect pipe coming out wall, hold a black bag (with no holes) under open pipe, have someone open cold valve, with pipe open full bore should be enough to remove any trapped air.If you get water, let it run into bag until you see good constant flow.

yoshytoshy

You should pop up into the attic and have a look around.
Sometimes the feeds for downstairs loos are taken from up in the attic and brought straight down through the partition.

If this is the case ,the pipes might be frozen up in the attic.

niceirishfella

yoshytoshy wrote: »

You should pop up into the attic and have a look around.
Sometimes the feeds for downstairs loos are taken from up in the attic and brought straight down through the partition.

If this is the case ,the pipes might be frozen up in the attic.

+1.
Most likely.
Trace the feed of those taps back to the tanks and you find exposed pipework there I'd say.

Rob113

would there be a seperate feed for the cold tap and toilet downstairs to the rest of the cold taps and toilets. All the rest are working fine.

niceirishfella

Rob113 wrote: »

would there be a seperate feed for the cold tap and toilet downstairs to the rest of the cold taps and toilets. All the rest are working fine.

they may be tank feed or mains fed, trace them back if you can to see where they get their feed?

GubMan

I've a related problem lads and lassies, water gone from main cold tap feed downstairs in the kitchen, all other cold taps still working, I assume they are being fed from the tank in the attic. I checked the tank upstairs and its full, its not filling however when you push down the stopcock. I assume therefore that my incoming pipe is frozen. I have a water softener under kitchen sink. 2 questions therefore.
1 should I turn off the water softener as it'll try cycle again tonight and if there's no incoming water, could it be damaged?
2 I've no exposed pipes outside, any ideas on how I defrost the incoming water supply? or is this a pressure problem from the mains (I'm on a hill and suseptible to low pressure)

Any comments appreciated!

niceirishfella

I'd turn off the softner - to be sure.
You can get a heat gun to the incoming pipes and use it to heat the pipes to get the flow back to the ballcock.
Tip; Remove the lagging off the pipe and move the pipe around - do you hear cracking inside (the iced water?)

GubMan

pipes upstairs don't seem to be frozen, so freeze must be outside. any suggestions?

yoshytoshy

We're getting a lot of calls today for freezing pipes.

Some dublin housing estates have frozen mains outside the houses.
Other people have frozen drain pipes etc.

Get the kettle out and pour boiling water over anything outside thats frozen.

For attics ,try leaving the attic door open with the heating on full blast.

Also ,any hot or cold that are frozen ,try leaving the taps open a little to allow for some expansion.