As per title, we have a hot water tank, no work been done recently, but have realised it is taking an age for hot water to come out in kitchen.
Hot water is fine in bathroom.
Is there anything I can check before I get a plumber to look at it ?
Has it always been rubbish?
Ours is because the cold water is at mains pressure and the hot is gravity fed from the cold tank in the loft
Someone suggested swapping to a low pressure tap and fitting a PRV on the cold side to balance them.
Yeah, never been brilliant, but it does seem like it's now taking longer for hot water to come .
Probably have same setup, cold water tank in loft feeds hot water tank in cupboard in kids bedroom, kitchen is downstairs.
Taps in bathroom and kitchen are both mixer taps, but hot water pressure in bathroom is better than kitchen.
There might (should) be a mesh filter in the lines feeding the tap, could be worth dismantling the hot side to find it and see if its clogged with dislodged limescale?
Ta, will have a look under the sink later
Do mean that the pressure (flow rate) is poor.
Nor that it takes a long time for the water to get hot ?
Or, both maybe ?
Might just be the length of pipe from the cylinder, water is cooling down. Trace heat and insulated pipes if this is the case.
@neal - yes, both, but mainly poor pressure
1) Blockage/tap problem
2) Airlock, easy to diagnose/sort out by using cold water pressure, usually without special tools
Flow straitener on tap outlet clogged would be first thing to check.
If it’s always been worse, there’s a fair chance that the inline stop valve is a flow restricted type. Look at the one in the bathroom to see if it’s different. Easy job to swap, Screwfix will have what you need.
Thanks for the replies.
After googling what a flow straightener is, I unscrewed it from the tap and found it was full of grit/sand.
Have cleaned it and it's much better now.
Thanks again.
That was the water filter you'll be getting all sorts out of the tap now 🙂
