Hot Water Pressure Lost - Boiler Change Needed?!?!

[ShortShift811]

In the last couple of days we have lost hot water pressure, mainly to the mixer shower and also a slight loss of pressure in the bathroom taps. We have a gravity fed system for the mixer shower (with a header tank in the loft) and a standard boiler in the kitchen with an immersion tank in the bedroom.

On speaking to a plumber, seems the only fixes are a) a pump to improve the pressure, but he advised that's potentially £400 and just something else to go wrong on a fairly inappropriate system or b) a complete new combi boiler in the loft, which would seem much more appropriate for our 3 bed semi with one bathroom and give the increase in pressure we're looking for. Cost about £1700 -£2K.

So, is the above basically what I'm looking at, or is there anything else I should be aware of before I call someone out and start getting charged for things?

Going to get up in the loft tonight and check there's no insulation / dead animals etc blocking the tank, but other than that I'm stumped.

Over to the PH collective...

[Ferg]

If it's happened suddenly on a gravity system it's likely to be blocked somewhere...possibly with air.

[tc153]

Connect a small bit of hose to your hot tap and push some mains cold water through it for about 1 min, then let the hot water flow for abit. This might dislodge a airlock. Or use your washing machine taps if you have them?
Have you had any plumbing work done recently? Has the gate valve been closed (red wheeled valve on 22mm pipe feeding the bottom of the cylinder)

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

This used to happen regularly in my old flat. In the end I plumbed in a piece of copper pipe with a stopcock in it between the mains and the hot water pipe, so I could simply open the valve to flush the air-lock out.