Hi everyone,
I moved into a new build three bedroom, two bathroom bungalow about 2.5 years ago. Ever since we moved in there has been an issue with the water pressure.
Toward the end of last year the pressure had got worse. For instance, you could not run another tap in the house if a toilet was refilling or if someone was in the shower. If someone was running a bath then all taps in the house would have no water supply to them and the toilets wouldn't refill if flushed until the bath was stopped.
So we telephoned our water provider to see if this is normal for this area or if there were any known issues with the supply in our street.
To our suprise they said that they have noticed that since we have moved into the property that we have been using very high amounts of water.
I can't see us consciously being users of a large amount of water. We have a shower most days and sometimes have a bath instead. We have a dishwasher and washing machine. The dishwasher is used about once a day and the washing machine is only used maybe twice a week at most. The showers we have are mixer type without any power assistance.
The water company have so far been very helpful and asked us to undertake some simple tests to try to identify either a leak or something else in the house using large amounts of water.
The first thing they asked us to do was to ensure the stopcock in the house was fully open. To my surprise I found the stopcock in the house to be only about half open. I thought that when we moved in that this was all setup correctly. I did check the stopcock before calling the water company but I could not turn it. After checking it again following speaking to the water company I managed to turn it until it was fully open. I think it had got a little seized so just needed more brute force to open it fully. Once I had opened it fully, we had full water pressure and we could use the taps at the same time as running a bath or flushing the toilet. The water that came out of the taps and toilet however was brown for a while and it then settled back to clear water.
So the water pressure issue was resolved.
But the water company stated we were using very large amounts of water so we needed to test for a leak between the meter in the street and the stopcock in the house.
So I fully turned off the stopcock and took a meter reading. I waited an hour and checked the meter again and it had not changed. So the water usage was from something or a leak in the house.
So I turned the stopcock fully open again and started to monitor usage by taking regular meter readings.
To my horror I could not believe the difference between the meter readings. Between the readings we did not use any toilets, showers, didn't have any baths and did not have the washing machine or dishwasher on. We didn't use any of the taps so I thought the readings should not change.
The first meter reading that I took, after opening the stopcock in full, was from overnight and it indicated that we had used 130 litres of water overnight.
I've been doing further readings with the stopvalves to individual items closed and without using any water from taps etc.
Overnight last night we have used 394 litres of water. Again, we did not use any showers, toilets, baths or taps during that time.
So with everything off we were still using lots of water for some reason.
So the only thing left that I could think of was the underfloor heating and water heating that is in our laundry cupboard.
So I switched off all the underfloor heating controllers in each room and ensured the manifold actuators were all closed. I then also switched the hot water controller to off instead of it using the timer schedules.
I took a new meter reading and waited an hour and to my suprise we had now only used 3 litres of water. I left it another hour and took another reading and that time we had used 1 litre of water. However, we did not use any taps or any water during that time so even with the heating and hot water off we still have some form of water leak/usage somewhere.
My first concern is why the underfloor heating and/or water heating is using such large amounts of water. Is it normal for underfloor heating to use so much water when it is on?
The underfloor heating and hot water are fed from an air source heat pump.
The hot water is held in a 200 litre cylinder next to the underfloor heating manifolds. We do not have any water tank in the loft.
I'm now going to test the modern dual flush toilets to see if they are using water when they shouldn't be. They appear to be dry around the pan and I can't isolate them easily because the shutoff valves for each toilet has been boxed in.
Unfortunately our landlord did not provide us with any instructions for this heating system in this house so I'm having to learn it as I go along.
Thanks,
Chris
I moved into a new build three bedroom, two bathroom bungalow about 2.5 years ago. Ever since we moved in there has been an issue with the water pressure.
Toward the end of last year the pressure had got worse. For instance, you could not run another tap in the house if a toilet was refilling or if someone was in the shower. If someone was running a bath then all taps in the house would have no water supply to them and the toilets wouldn't refill if flushed until the bath was stopped.
So we telephoned our water provider to see if this is normal for this area or if there were any known issues with the supply in our street.
To our suprise they said that they have noticed that since we have moved into the property that we have been using very high amounts of water.
I can't see us consciously being users of a large amount of water. We have a shower most days and sometimes have a bath instead. We have a dishwasher and washing machine. The dishwasher is used about once a day and the washing machine is only used maybe twice a week at most. The showers we have are mixer type without any power assistance.
The water company have so far been very helpful and asked us to undertake some simple tests to try to identify either a leak or something else in the house using large amounts of water.
The first thing they asked us to do was to ensure the stopcock in the house was fully open. To my surprise I found the stopcock in the house to be only about half open. I thought that when we moved in that this was all setup correctly. I did check the stopcock before calling the water company but I could not turn it. After checking it again following speaking to the water company I managed to turn it until it was fully open. I think it had got a little seized so just needed more brute force to open it fully. Once I had opened it fully, we had full water pressure and we could use the taps at the same time as running a bath or flushing the toilet. The water that came out of the taps and toilet however was brown for a while and it then settled back to clear water.
So the water pressure issue was resolved.
But the water company stated we were using very large amounts of water so we needed to test for a leak between the meter in the street and the stopcock in the house.
So I fully turned off the stopcock and took a meter reading. I waited an hour and checked the meter again and it had not changed. So the water usage was from something or a leak in the house.
So I turned the stopcock fully open again and started to monitor usage by taking regular meter readings.
To my horror I could not believe the difference between the meter readings. Between the readings we did not use any toilets, showers, didn't have any baths and did not have the washing machine or dishwasher on. We didn't use any of the taps so I thought the readings should not change.
The first meter reading that I took, after opening the stopcock in full, was from overnight and it indicated that we had used 130 litres of water overnight.
I've been doing further readings with the stopvalves to individual items closed and without using any water from taps etc.
Overnight last night we have used 394 litres of water. Again, we did not use any showers, toilets, baths or taps during that time.
So with everything off we were still using lots of water for some reason.
So the only thing left that I could think of was the underfloor heating and water heating that is in our laundry cupboard.
So I switched off all the underfloor heating controllers in each room and ensured the manifold actuators were all closed. I then also switched the hot water controller to off instead of it using the timer schedules.
I took a new meter reading and waited an hour and to my suprise we had now only used 3 litres of water. I left it another hour and took another reading and that time we had used 1 litre of water. However, we did not use any taps or any water during that time so even with the heating and hot water off we still have some form of water leak/usage somewhere.
My first concern is why the underfloor heating and/or water heating is using such large amounts of water. Is it normal for underfloor heating to use so much water when it is on?
The underfloor heating and hot water are fed from an air source heat pump.
The hot water is held in a 200 litre cylinder next to the underfloor heating manifolds. We do not have any water tank in the loft.
I'm now going to test the modern dual flush toilets to see if they are using water when they shouldn't be. They appear to be dry around the pan and I can't isolate them easily because the shutoff valves for each toilet has been boxed in.
Unfortunately our landlord did not provide us with any instructions for this heating system in this house so I'm having to learn it as I go along.
Thanks,
Chris
