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I'm learning to be a plumber in the UK through an evening class. Exams and practical work is going well, but it's all in a classroom/workshop. What don't they tell you at plumbing school? What should I be ready for out there in the world?
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Oct 7, 2023 17:12
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:33 |
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I've already seen some jank. I looked in the airing cupboard of the house I'm renting and there is a new pump fitted with a mess of unbraced speedfit and braided pipe. The pipework convulses whenever the pump switches on and I hope I'm out of here before one of the joints fail.
Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 21:39
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Hearing the words" hundred flush reserve" made me think you were putting a special cistern up in the attic just for backup toilet flushes in the event of a water outage.
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Feb 8, 2024 23:46
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Plumb it first
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Feb 14, 2024 18:51
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Here the hot is meant to be on the left of the tap as you look at it head on, so they label it H and C on the handle, or with blue and red dots. Whether it's forward or backwards will depend on which side of the basin you mounted the tap. Now, there's no law against putting cold in the H side, but there should be.
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Mar 8, 2024 07:07
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The cistern will only be hot after you've flushed it, at which point you're heading out of the room. It's terrible radiator design imo.
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Mar 8, 2024 07:49
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IOwnCalculus posted:Related question: what is it that determines the need for an expansion tank on a hot water system? I've literally never seen one on any residential installation. Short answer: if water is in a closed system with no open vents, especially if it is being heated, then you need to accommodate for its expansion. Long answer: When there's no expansion tank, you traditionally have a twin-feed system where both the dirty side of the system (boiler and your radiators and the cylinder coil) and the clean side (water through the cylinder to become hot water for your taps) are filled by separate cisterns in your loft, each vented by an open pipe up to those cisterns. When the water in these systems expands, it heads up the vent pipes and worst case is that it ends up back in those cisterns, which have an overflow if the situation gets real bad. The drawback of this system is that the pressure in these systems is determined by the height of the cisterns, and you only get 1 bar for each 10m of head. You can do away with either cistern by making it a closed loop or unvented system. The system is then pressurised as it's filled from the mains, rather than by gravity, but the drawback is that you need to accommodate for the water expansion, especially if you're using an unvented cylinder for the clean side of the system. All of this assumes you're using a traditional boiler and cylinder, and not some of the other things on the market like combis or instantaneous heaters or primatic cylinders. It also assumes the plumber who installed this poo poo is doing their job properly. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 08:29
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KillHour posted:Is this a European thing? Nobody in the US has a cistern in their attic AFAIK and most people don't have expansion tanks on the hot side of their drinking water. I have an expansion tank on the input of the boiler for my radiant heat, but it's just a closed loop on the hot side. I'm in the UK. Cisterns here are very common, partly because the airgap meets our building regulations for isolating warm/hot water from the drinking water. Partly because some of our mains are old or just crap, and it's become a 'thing' to have water in storage to keep the air out of your systems if the water service is stopped or slow. You can connect a cylinder directly to the mains with no cistern or vent, but the isolation has to take the form of a sealed double check valve, meaning you have a sealed hot water system (including cylinder —which is why you need a special qualification to install this kind of system). This is called an unvented cylinder, and it's common in larger homes or commercial places where high-pressure hot water is needed. An expansion vessel is just one of the protections installed here to prevent the cylinder becoming a bomb, although there are special cylinders for this which have the pressure bladder built into the top of the cylinder instead of needing a separate one on the side.
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Mar 13, 2024 10:46
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That sideways cylinder with the rust leaking out of it is a handle that turns this valve. If you can take just that handle off, and show us a photo of what's underneath, I might be able to tell you a cheap way to fix it: I'm guessing this has a rising spindle and it's leaking from the packing nut. If that's the case, you can fix it with only a spanner and some PTFE tape. Sometimes the handle just pulls straight off. Other times the top (or in this case, far left side) of the handle is a disc that prises out and has a screw hidden under it.
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Mar 16, 2024 11:14
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:My money's on tree root infiltration of main sewer line. Yep: I just came here to ask are there any trees nearby?
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Mar 23, 2024 16:05
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If the PB splits, it'll tear out the ceilings for you. Then you don't have to pay a plumber to make those holes.
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Mar 31, 2024 11:20
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:33 |
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Yeah I was being sarcastic when I said to let the ceilings drop. I didn't anticipate the plumbers actually saying that seriously. I guess they want to bill your insurance and justify the elevated cost as being "emergency rates" Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 23:38
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