Making Hot Water: You Are Doing It Wrong.

[ewt]

GRAH.

So, first I figured out that the water in Bethnal Green is what is giving me this stupid rash on my arms and neck and so on. Fine, I thought, I'll look into filters again and see what I can do.

Today while I was showering, the hot water suddenly lost almost all pressure. Bugger, thought I, and proceeded to try to finish washing my hair with cold water. This has not happened to me before in that shower. But it wasn't completely cold water, because there was still some supplementary hot water.

Halfway through trying to get the shampoo out of my hair, the hot water came back, but it comes in fits and starts with lots of air, it's rather orange (rust?) and has bits in (rust!). I'd expect that to come out of a radiator, not a tap.

We have some kind of Potterton gas-fired flash boiler. And radiators, none of which (to my knowledge, which is NOT certain) are currently leaking.

Any ideas? Other than 'shower elsewhere until this is fixed'?

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

If it's a flash heating boiler, and if my understanding is correct, the heating and hot water circuits should be mostly separate. My guess is that this is some kind of failure in the hot water side that probably means the boiler is broken. This would also be where the air is getting in. Any signs of leaks at the boiler end?

If this has been building up for a while there may well have been some contamination of the hot water with iron compounds for a while.

Bottom line is probably that you need to contact the landlord to get it repaired or replaced :-(

Water

[columbiaist.livejournal.com]

In my office park we have lots of plumbing modifications and anytime anyone shuts off the water main to the building when the water returns we get the waterhammer, air & water mix, rusty water, and sonetimes dirt in the line.

Nothing like washing your hands after using the bathroom to have the faucet spurt, with great velocity, brown rusty water into the bowl of the sink and onto your clothes.

Have there been plumbing work crews in the area?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think your boiler is buggered.

[sci.livejournal.com]

A bit scab of rust probably chose that momment to detatch from the inside one of the pipes and breifly block it. Modern systems should use steel alloys that don't rust up that much. Your boiler probably has a cast-iron heat exchanger.
My only idea would be to hit the heat exchanger with a mallet while running to try and get any more lose out of the system. But that'd mean opening up the boiler, and neither of us are Corgi registered. :P

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Or want to be covered in very hot water if it actually breaks...

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

If you keep running the hot water does it eventually run clear?

I've had random rust turn up in things that have been unused for a while but that clear up if you run the water for a while.

I'd run both taps to see if rust is just in the hot.

It might just clear up, but I suspect not.

If its a 'constant hot water' system then it might actually be the water company rather than your boiler.