Hello peeps, here I am again for plumbing advice.
Friday night and I get a phone call at work, a pipe has gone from having a pin prick leak (been like that for months lol) to a full scale waterfall and its up under the back of the kitchen sink. Mum's first thought was to shut the valves off in the airing cupboard (reported that one kept on spinning but eventually shut) and then she pulled the hatch in the floor and turned the valve off that is on the house side of the pump, then turned the pump off too.

Long story short but that burst pipe is now fixed. I opened all the valves back up and put the pump on, expecting water to gush out into the cold tank in the loft - but it didn't. Just a trickle, and more water came out when the pump switched off than when it was on - but still only talking a trickle rather than a 'flow'.

I assumed it had an air lock, but the pump pressure gauge was reading 2bar when off, and when it was pumping, it got up to 3bar then switched off (which is perfectly as it should be for this pump in this system) and the pump itself was fully primed and didn't need further priming. I closed the valve under the floor just on the house side of the pump, disconnected the pipe and checked the flow of water when the pump was running and it was a good strong gush ((last time we had an airlock I was able to put my hand over this pipe as water only came out in dribs n drabs, and when released, that cured the blockage)) so connected it all back up, but no change to the flow in the cold tank in the loft.

Throughout the day, the pump has been coming on for maybe about 20-30 seconds and then going off (not all that often), and to our surprise, the tank in the loft did fill up quite quickly, but the force of water being pumped to the tank is not right. Plus, now that the tank is less than half full, the pump won't come on at all. Even turning the kitchen cold tap on, which comes directly from the pump doesn't get the pump running for any length of time. Something that I haven't tried yet, is going right back to the well and filling the pipes with water to make sure no air lock between the pump and footvalve.

Just to confuse the issue, we also found out that there is no water coming out of any of the hot taps. I drained a little from the hot water cylinder and plenty came out, so we connected the kitchen cold tap to kitchen hot and opened both up. All the other hot taps had water coming out of them, and it sounded like water was also running into the hot water cylinder. After a few mins, this stopped, so I assumed it would be pushed up to the cold tank in the loft via the hot tank overflow, but it wasn't coming out of there either.

So to sum up, theres no water in any of the hot taps, and the pump seems to think that the cold tank in the loft is full when its not! Anyone help? Just going to stick some pics on photobucket so I can illustrate my story

reopened the main stop cock fully???

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

Yep!

This is the valve on the house side of the pump

(someone suggested that might be faulty, cos it should probably sit 'inline' with the pipes when open and across the pipe when off, but it spins quite a lot to operate it.

These are the valves in the airing cupboard, from left to right the pipes are - hot tank fill from loft - cold fill from pump to loft - cold tank to bathroom - hot tank vent/overflow to loft & hot feed to taps

and below them is the hot water cyl


And this is the view in the loft -


Strangely, the only pipe that doesn't have a stopcock is the hot water vent / hot feed to taps. The one that my Mum reported as needing umpteen turns to turn it off was the one on the far left.

Any one of those valves could be dodgy, I would suggest replacing the valve in pic 1 first with a full flow isolator, the gate valve (Red circular jobbie) going to the loft second..again with a full flow isolator...

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

I think the issues are being cloudy here.

Turn all the gate valves on (anti clockwise) until they stop, any that don't is busted.

Back to the real problem, have you purged the pump for starters.

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Thanks...the first 2 on the left turn about 1/4 turn and are both on (stopped) and the 3rd one is the one that spins quite a lot before stopping, but it must be open as thats the cold feed to bathroom taps and theres water coming out of them.

I'm sorry Scruff, purge the pump? It's fully primed if thats what you mean.

Ok lets start again.

The pump is pumping when something tells it too.

What controls the water going into the tank, could the valve be blocked.

Are you sure all the pump valves are open.

Could be two or more problems, but first make sure all the valves are on.

Is any of the hot taps working, you say they are and they ain't.

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Morning Scruff, I am sure all of the valves are open, and there is no water in any of the hot taps unless I connect the kitchen cold tap to the kitchen hot tap with a hosepipe. Thought this would blow through any air locks but as soon as I turn the cold tap off, the hot stops.

I'm just going to try the kitchen cold tap again and see if the pump will come on - it should do as its a direct feed from the pump.

The possible blocked valve you talk about - you mean in the cold water tank on the ballcock system? I haven't checked that yet.

If your not getting pressure/flow from the pump then that is the first problem.

Turning things off can dislodge scale etc, rust etc, when you turn it back on, and easily block valves and filters.

You need to get the incoming sorted first.

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Right, I'm going outside (to check the pipes from the well to the pump), I may be some time

(Just ran 2 buckets of cold off the kitchen cold tap, pump not coming on, pressure today sitting at just under 3bar)

Unlikely to be that end of the pump.

If the kitchen tap is direct from the pump, why isn't the pressure dropping when you run the tap, and where is the water coming from.

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I suppose its coming from the bladder tank on the pump, its got one of those blue tanks on to pof the pump.

Could be an expansion vessel or an accumulator type vessel.

If you run enough water the pressure should drop and the pump should run.

How full is the storage tank now, have you cleaned the ballvalve yet.

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No - hunting around the shed for big enough spanners!

Since my post where I emptied 2 buckets out of the kitchen cold tap, about 5mins after doing so, the pump came on, but again it only lasted for about 30 secs and there was no water coming out into the tank in the loft, and now it keeps coming back on every 10mins or so. There is a strange noise in the pipes, sounds like something flowing through them but can't pinpoint what or where! So cleaning that valve is my immediate task. I'll post up what happens when I've done that - thanks for help so far Scruff