My immersion heater tank is leaking, how do I isolate it?
Question:My tank is leaking, but I can't find the leak. I want to remove it's water supply to find the fault but have no idea how to do that. Any ideas?
Answers:
You might need to shut off the entire house. I have found main shut off valves in many strange places. Crawl spaces, bathroom walls, (behind a shower) in the garage. Where ever the main line comes in. There is a possibility that their is a shut off by your tank, but that would be lucky. The thing to remember is to not let anyone open faucets while the pipes are loose. You will get wet!
Good luck.
No! we don't live there - you do - usually a tap/valve shuts down the water supply above or to the side
Look at all the pipes connected to it. There will be one for the water to enter and one for the water to leave. You obviously want the second one. Look for the tap on it and turn it off. If it is stiff tap gently with a hammer or use large pliers.
by turning off the stop valve, and turn on the hot tap to empty the tank. turn off the circuit breaker first so no to waste electric or burn your element out!!
if it is a copper cylinder you should find a cold supply entering the bottom of the cylinder on this supply pipe there should be a stopvalve the supply to the hot taps comes out a the top of the cylinder after you turn off the supply you need to empty the cylinder turn off electic supply remove fuse for safety there should be a drain **** at he bottom of the cylinder could be on the bottom of the feed pipe you can now undo the connections but remember not all the water will be drained disconect the heater remove cylinder
Take my tip - Don't hit the valve with a hammer as "Ascoile" suggests. When the part breaks you have a bigger problem than when you started.
If your cylinder is leaking it must be very old, consequently you will find that the turn off valves may possibly be seized up. However, most normal plumbers will have placed valves on the adjoining pipework. You have made no mention of what arrangements you have for hot water now because if you turn off valves they may affect the water supply to Handbasin @ Bath.
The best advice you can be given, based on the fact that you are clearly short on experience in the water department, is to call in a plumber and have a replacement tank fitted pdq. It will cost overall upwards of £150 but the full job will be done. I have to say that special tools are required and for this project you should have the job done by a mature man who knows what he's doing.
Not quite the answer you were looking for but you will have all the time in the world to regret messing about with something where you were short on skill and tools.
It explains how to do it here-
http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/plumb_...
If you mean the copper tank in the airing cupboard, then you turn the water off to it by looking for a 22mm pipe coming from the attic and it goes to the lowest part of the hot tank. There should be a gate valveon this pipe which you turn off clockwise. Then open all you hot taps to let the hot water run out. When the hot water stops running, close all hot taps, and look for a drain off on the copper tank tp empty the copper tank. Even though you ran water out of the taps, the water level is still at the top of the copper tank. Opening the hot taps doesn't drain the tank, it just drains the pipework up to the top of the copper tank.
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