Hot water flow problem

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ArthurWood

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Pottered around the boat today and tried a few things after her 3 months of idleness and found that I could not get any water flow from either of the two hot taps. Cold water flow is fine. Both hot and cold are pumped by the same pump.
Any ideas from you learned lot before I begin dismantling things? Thanks in advance.
 
It's an electric immersion-type heater in a tank. I didn't turn on the heater, as I don't know if there's water in the tank, although the main water tank is full.
 
Does the pump run when you open the hot taps? Assuming not, then suggests a blockage of the water supply feed into the calorifier or on the outlet from the tank. If the plastic pipe fittings can be disconnected (most can with a little care- just make sure you don't push the gripper ring further up the pipe otherwise you will have to shorten the pipe to reconnect!) with the pump switched off- disconnect the calorifier hot outlet (usually the one from the top of the tank). switch on pump briefly to see if water spurts out. If so then blockage somewhere to the taps. If not then check the supply pipework.

One other thought- do you have a mixing thermostatic valve fitted to control the hot water temperature (safety feature I suppose). It would be on the outlet from the calorifier and also have a cold feed into it. Might have got stuck closed?
 
Nick - the pump doesn't run when the hot taps are on, so I did suspect a blockage somewhere. I'm not sure if there's a mixing thingy, so I'll have to look tomorrow. I'll do as you suggest and let you know. Thnx.
 
Nick,

I took a look today - unscrewed in and out pipes from calorifier/water heater. Water ran freely from the heater, but still no luck with flow from the taps. I'll take another look at the pipework and go from there.
 
I wonder if you have a non-return valve between the point where the cold water and hot water circuits diverge and the input to the bottom of the calorifier. This is quite a common arrangement to prevent hot water backflow. If you have one check that it works and has not stuck closed. It may well look just like a fat sort of connector just before the input to the calorifier.
 
Danny, thanks. I'll take a look next week. SWMBO has told me I'm driving 7 hr to Savannah tomorrow to meet up with our younger son and his family for the weekend
 
Hi Danny - gave your regards to I-95. Some beautiful coastal plain scenery along parts of FL and GA, especially the rivers, Altamaha etc.
I finally got around to looking at the hot water system again today and the problem was indeed the non-return valve sticking. I poked it around gently and all seems to be well now. Thank you very much for your help.
 
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