Cold water tank emptying and filling for hours, puzzle, any ideas?
Drainage and wastage systems and plumbing help, advice and answers

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Perplexed
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Cold water tank emptying and filling for hours, puzzle, any ideas?

by Perplexed » Thu Feb 17, 2022 11:22 am

I have a house in flats, No central heating as all electric radiators, all sinks are plumbed straight of the mains for fresh drinkable water and have under sink instantaneous water heaters, all toilets and the electric showers are fed with water from a storage tank a tank in the loft, the tank refills from the mains.

Lately the tank has started to fill very loudly, fast and continuously for hours at a time, the water leaving the tank can be seen flowing through the outside drain or sewer pipe, the problem does not appear to be the ball valve or float in the tank, since if I hold the float up the mains water stops refilling but the water level continues to drop until the tank is empty. All toilets and showers have been checked for leaks or overflow, nothing found, and all flats checked for leaks also nothing found.

The really puzzling thing is that the problem is intermittent, may happen for anything from 1 to 4 hours on one day then simply stop before starting this refilling again, maybe hours or several days later.

I have tried turning water from the tank that feeds toilets and showers off and then on again at stopcock in each flat, one at a time, but because of the intermittent nature of the problem it is impossible to diagnose if any one flat makes difference.
I considered getting “expert” help,whatever that is, but plumbers seem perplexed and say they don't deal with this kind of thing, and getting in a track and trace service seems hopeless as the problem is so intermittent. Any boffins out there with an idea?

stoneyboy
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Re: Cold water tank emptying and filling for hours, puzzle, any ideas?

by stoneyboy » Sat Feb 19, 2022 9:36 pm

Hi perplexed,
Your problem will almost certainly be that you have plunger type flush units in the flats cisterns and one or more of these are sometimes sticking in the open position. Try every loo for full and partial flush and hold down actuating button.
Regards S

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