The House Projects Thread

[NotoriousREV]

Has anyone here ever had to deal with their local water authority over water pressure? We only get just about the legal minimum (0.7 bar) and when I measure the flow rate from the downstairs taps I only get around 5.5 litres per minute. If they’re hitting the minimum, will they even bother to help? It’s especially annoying as I live a few hundred metres from the water tower that supplies the whole of Liverpool so it’s not as if there should be a shortage of a pressure head.

I haven't had to deal with a water authority over such an issue, but if you don't get anywhere I'm sure there are still things you can do to improve things in the house. I take it you're measuring at the kitchen tap or whichever is the first tap after the stopcock? Are the downstairs taps definitely run directly from the mains rather than loft storage tank?

Bigger diameter pipe from the point the water supply enters your property could be a good idea; even if pressure is a bit poor, it'll allow more volume flow rate.

Yes, kitchen tap, stopcock is in the cupboard below and is direct feed.

Mik, there's no throttle at the inside stopcock but I may take a look at the water meter (under a cover on my drive) to see if there's one there, or it there's a stopcock there that's not fully open.

It's one of those things that's bugged me for ages but it's never really low enough to be a problem as such, but the showers aren't as strong as I'd like, the toilet cisterns take a long time to fill, pressure washer struggles etc.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Has anyone here ever had to deal with their local water authority over water pressure? We only get just about the legal minimum (0.7 bar) and when I measure the flow rate from the downstairs taps I only get around 5.5 litres per minute. If they’re hitting the minimum, will they even bother to help? It’s especially annoying as I live a few hundred metres from the water tower that supplies the whole of Liverpool so it’s not as if there should be a shortage of a pressure head.

We dealt with UU. Pressure was fine, but flow rate wasn't great. We had a new 25mm MDPE pipe moled in, and UU made a new connection under the Lead Replacement Pipe Scheme for no charge. The moling cost about £700 IIRC. Flow has definitely improved, but I think our internal pipework is now limiting the flow we'd like to achieve. That and the old massively undersized combi...

Our old connection is still live as well near 12mo later, as the numpty contractors tarmacced over the old stopcock, before then insisting we were on a shared connection with our neighbours (we aren't). I have threatened to start using the old connection now it's unmetered, which has spurred them into action. Will hopefully have that disconnected next Fri.

I'd get on to UU - they sent an engineer round fairly promptly to check everything at ours, including whether the external stopcock is opened full, before signing off a recommendation.

[GG.]

Having a bit of a nightmare time with the house at the moment. Main project was to paint the external windows which were flaking all over, re-paint the now grey and filthy masonry and re-putty the sash windows where needed. We managed to get most of this done but they guy we're using took his damn sweet time doing it.

Second job was to re-decorate the master bedroom before the shutters that we've ordered arrive and need to be fitted. Stripping the ceiling paper left the plaster underneath looking like the surface of the moon so unfortunately it needed to be skimmed... which is where the problems really started. The ceiling beneath had been painted with old-style distemper paint back in the day and basically it cannot be PVA'd and plastered over without sealing first. Needless to say the ape that did it didn't realise this and therefore didn't seal it.

As soon as the decorator started mist coating the ceiling, this happened:



Which we thought might be salvageable... until it spread further.



By which time it was obvious it all had to come off and be re-done. One and a half days of chipping off the old stuff bit by bit including a couple of hours of me doing it after work and we're still not quite finished.



Needless to say we got a full refund from the original plasterer but I'm still out of pocket for two days of the decorator in taking it all off though the decorator is throwing in a third day and sealing of the ceiling for free as he feels vicariously culpable as he arranged the plasterer in the first place.

Oh yeah, and we discovered we have a water leak somewhere in the house yesterday too. No obvious dampness though so I'm sure that will also be a nightmare to find and fix

[Jobbo]

How have you discovered a water leak if you can't find any dampness? Is it just the water meter turning when the taps are all off?

We had a leak appear as soon as we'd gone on holiday last month. My stepdaughter kindly send photos of the stains appearing on the hallway ceiling, and updated the photos every day. They were getting worse but slowly, so I assumed they were caused by a holed central heating pipe and made sure the heating was turned off while we were away (thank god for the remote controllability of Evohome!)

Thinking it wasn't that bad I left it until the plumbers were coming to fit the new cylinder; I warned them in advance that there was a leak, and fortunately the floorboards which had to come up were necessary for the cylinder pipework anyway. However, I was rather perturbed to find out that it was actually a mains cold water pipe which had formed a pinhole, constantly spraying a mist of water and it was about 2" deep between the joists. Thank god the builder put up the ceiling below so well; it doesn't need replacing and just needs repainting now it's been fixed and dried out.

Taken after the plumbers had sponged quite a lot of water out already:

[Broccers]

I fell foul of crap plastering previously so found the best solution is to pay the decorator to sub it out - then if its wanky it gets done again - you only really can tell when the paint goes on. Last living room ceiling ended up costing him a lot of money.

[ste]

Has anyone here ever had to deal with their local water authority over water pressure? We only get just about the legal minimum (0.7 bar) and when I measure the flow rate from the downstairs taps I only get around 5.5 litres per minute. If they’re hitting the minimum, will they even bother to help? It’s especially annoying as I live a few hundred metres from the water tower that supplies the whole of Liverpool so it’s not as if there should be a shortage of a pressure head.

We dealt with UU. Pressure was fine, but flow rate wasn't great. We had a new 25mm MDPE pipe moled in, and UU made a new connection under the Lead Replacement Pipe Scheme for no charge. The moling cost about £700 IIRC. Flow has definitely improved, but I think our internal pipework is now limiting the flow we'd like to achieve. That and the old massively undersized combi...

Our old connection is still live as well near 12mo later, as the numpty contractors tarmacced over the old stopcock, before then insisting we were on a shared connection with our neighbours (we aren't). I have threatened to start using the old connection now it's unmetered, which has spurred them into action. Will hopefully have that disconnected next Fri.

I'd get on to UU - they sent an engineer round fairly promptly to check everything at ours, including whether the external stopcock is opened full, before signing off a recommendation.

I need to mole in a new feed as I have ample pressure but not enough flow. This lead replacement scheme is something I hadn't heard about, how does that work?

Southern Water hate me as it is. Water meters are mandatory around here. Everyone was fitted with one 5 or 6 years back. Every one but me and my next door neighbour as the feed comes onto my property, to nobody knows where, before splittiing off for my house and next door. The surveyed it for weeks and eventually gave up, so I'm still paying a flat water rate.

[GG.]

How have you discovered a water leak if you can't find any dampness? Is it just the water meter turning when the taps are all off?

We received our first water bill in March which seemed high but was for 3 months so a little difficult to judge so not being certain and with no leak being obvious I didn't galvanise myself to do anything about it. Lo and behold our fist six month bill arrived last week for £347 which is probably double what it should be for two adults and a toddler.

Made sure everything in the house was off and then checked the water meter and the leak indicator is still spinning so there's definitely a leak. I then turned off the main stopcock to the house and it stopped so unfortunately is inside and therefore our liability to fix. God knows where it is though and on a rough approximation on watching how fast the leak indicator is spinning with no water running and when a tap is on full I'd approximate the leak to be equivalent to having a tap running at 10-15%... permanently.

I expect that means it has to be somewhere under the floor on the ground floor and soaking away otherwise it'd be pouring through the ceilings by now.

[dinny_g]

Thank god the builder put up the ceiling below so well; it doesn't need replacing and just needs repainting now it's been fixed and dried out.

Jesus you're not wrong... that's impressive...

[Carlos]

How have you discovered a water leak if you can't find any dampness? Is it just the water meter turning when the taps are all off?

We received our first water bill in March which seemed high but was for 3 months so a little difficult to judge so not being certain and with no leak being obvious I didn't galvanise myself to do anything about it. Lo and behold our fist six month bill arrived last week for £347 which is probably double what it should be for two adults and a toddler.

Made sure everything in the house was off and then checked the water meter and the leak indicator is still spinning so there's definitely a leak. I then turned off the main stopcock to the house and it stopped so unfortunately is inside and therefore our liability to fix. God knows where it is though and on a rough approximation on watching how fast the leak indicator is spinning with no water running and when a tap is on full I'd approximate the leak to be equivalent to having a tap running at 10-15%... permanently.

I expect that means it has to be somewhere under the floor on the ground floor and soaking away otherwise it'd be pouring through the ceilings by now.

Toilet cistern overfilling and trickling into pan ?

[GG.]

Unfortunately not by the looks of it.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Has anyone here ever had to deal with their local water authority over water pressure? We only get just about the legal minimum (0.7 bar) and when I measure the flow rate from the downstairs taps I only get around 5.5 litres per minute. If they’re hitting the minimum, will they even bother to help? It’s especially annoying as I live a few hundred metres from the water tower that supplies the whole of Liverpool so it’s not as if there should be a shortage of a pressure head.

We dealt with UU. Pressure was fine, but flow rate wasn't great. We had a new 25mm MDPE pipe moled in, and UU made a new connection under the Lead Replacement Pipe Scheme for no charge. The moling cost about £700 IIRC. Flow has definitely improved, but I think our internal pipework is now limiting the flow we'd like to achieve. That and the old massively undersized combi...

Our old connection is still live as well near 12mo later, as the numpty contractors tarmacced over the old stopcock, before then insisting we were on a shared connection with our neighbours (we aren't). I have threatened to start using the old connection now it's unmetered, which has spurred them into action. Will hopefully have that disconnected next Fri.

I'd get on to UU - they sent an engineer round fairly promptly to check everything at ours, including whether the external stopcock is opened full, before signing off a recommendation.

I need to mole in a new feed as I have ample pressure but not enough flow. This lead replacement scheme is something I hadn't heard about, how does that work?

Southern Water hate me as it is. Water meters are mandatory around here. Everyone was fitted with one 5 or 6 years back. Every one but me and my next door neighbour as the feed comes onto my property, to nobody knows where, before splitting off for my house and next door. The surveyed it for weeks and eventually gave up, so I'm still paying a flat water rate.

I'm surprised they didn't just fit internal smart meters though at the stopcock, which is what we have.

I'm not sure whether the lead replacement scheme is something they're legally obliged to take part in, or that they just offer out of the goodness ( ) of their hearts. Anyway, basically if you have a new pipe moled, the guys that do it should be able to give you a sign off that it's all done to standard - find one that's on the WIAPS scheme/register. Then you'd get Southern Water on the blower and they should make your new connection for free. There's a contractor search on WRAS here: https://www.wras.co.uk/search/filter/

However, if you don't know where the existing supply is coming in that could be a problem! If your nearest contractors are anything like ours I reckon they'd find it though.

[NotoriousREV]

Got an engineer booked for next week to look at my pipes.

[Jobbo]

Are you sure it's not a proctologist?

[NotoriousREV]

Well, he'll presumably be looking at my stop cock too, so probably not.

[GG.]

Personally I find the revelation that Mik has a throttle on his cock to prevent the fluid discharging at too high a pressure definitely the highlight of today

[GG.]

So... the saga continues. Bought a tub of Artex Stabilex to deal with what distemper paint remains after removing all the plaster - no-where stocks it so I had to order it in. Picked it up before work this morning - turns out that it has a 12 month shelf life and the tub we were given is January 2016

Back that goes and I can't get any more for love nor money so having to switch to plan B and get a sealer called Zinsser Gardz which also apparently should work. Will have lost the slot for the decorator to come back and do it before the plaster comes next week, so now will have to roller it on over the weekend myself. FML.

[Simon]

Zinsser stuff is great - that will defo work. You can also use it where you've got water damaged plaster board after a leak etc. A coat or two of Gardz then emulsion over the top as normal. I've used it before!

[Rich B]

If anyone’s wondering where all the acrows in the world are, they’re at my place...

[Jobbo]

Ooh, anyone for dominoes?

[Rich B]

Fuck knows how they’re going to get in all the steels without playing giant dominoes!