VLOGS

Is your hot water system going hot and cold and making you think there’s a fault with your hot water system? Well, watch this video first and you might be able to save yourself some time and money.

Hi everyone. It’s Richard from Plumbdog here. I’m at a property in West Perth, Western Australia. The owner is meeting me on site and she said that the tenant has reported that he thinks there’s a fault with the hot water system because the hot water goes really hot and really cold, and he can’t quite figure it out. So I’ve come out to the property. The tenant’s not home, so it just gives me a little bit of space to work out what’s going on. I’m actually in the ensuite at the moment.

I’ve got the hot water system behind us. In this case it’s an electric continuous flow system and it’s actually one of the new style ones that we recommend. It’s a Stiebel Eltron LCD version and we recommend these all the time. Strangely enough, just recently I’ve been talking to a couple of plumber mates of mine, saying that I’m yet to come across a fault on one, and then lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, there’s a potential fault right behind me.

So we’ll work out what’s going on. It makes it a little bit more interesting on this job because the tenant’s actually a plumber himself, and he hasn’t been able to figure it out yet. So the pressure’s on to work out what’s going on and get the hot water back.

The first thing i’m going to do – you want to see I’ve got my temperature probe ready to go here- is to just want to check the temperature of the system. Is it hot, cold, is it lukewarm? So I’m just going to test it on one of these basin taps just to start with. Let’s find out what we’re dealing with and then we can go from there.

All right, so turn the hot water tap on and you can see the display on the hot water system has come on. These electronics are temperature controlled, so this one’s limited at 50 degrees, but you can change the temperature. It’s on max temperature 50 here, so within a metre we should be getting 49 degrees. Let me turn that temperature program so you can see it. It’s going up there to 49.4, so I would tend to disagree that there’s no hot water. As I said, I’m yet to come across a problem with one of these systems, and because it is giving hot water at 50 degrees as it should, I’m going to go around and check all of the outlets because I’ve got a sneaking suspicion I know what might be going on.

We’re now at the kitchen sink. What do we have here? 48, so 48.6 at the kitchen sink behind me. Now I can always expect there’ll be a little bit of heat loss in the pipes between the hot water system and the outlet. The first outlet being right next to the hot water system, I would always expect it to be a little bit hotter than the kitchen sink that’s in the middle of the apartment.

Back to the system. I’ve got a secret sneaking suspicion because where people usually have an issue is in their showers. You don’t normally notice the temperature of a basin because you put your hand in for a few seconds and done. But where you always do notice it is showers, because you’re setting that to a desired temperature. If you were showering at 50 or 49 degrees, it’d be too hot, so you’d actually set that down to a temperature a little bit cooler. Usually the issue is where you’ve set the temperature but then it fluctuates. I’m pretty sure the problem is a water fluctuation problem rather than the hot water system itself, because where the hot water system is just an outlet, like the kitchen sink or the basin, it’s a constant hot temperature. So I don’t think the hot water system is the problem. I’ve got a feeling that the showers are the problem. Let’s take a further look.

Here’s the shower in the ensuite. There’s the hot water system, here’s the shower. Now I’ve got a sneaky suspicion. It’s hard to measure the temperature of this because you’ve got to sort of cup your hand and you’re not really going to be showing the fluctuation. I’m taking the shower head off the hose and you can actually see that in there is a water restrictor to save wastage of water. The problem is that they play havoc on continuous flow hot water systems, both electric and gas. That little device in there is pretty much slowing down the flow of water out of the system. When it does that below the tolerance level on the system, it’s telling the system to turn on and turn off. So when it’s time to turn on and turn off, what’s going to happen is it’s going to get hot and cold, so i’m pretty sure we just found the problem. If we just pop that little restrictor out (you guys can do this at home), let’s use a little screwdriver, pop that out. The restricted device will obviously slow down the flow of the water and now we’ve got full bore.

If we’ve got full bore water flowing through the hot water system and through the shower head, we won’t get that fluctuation anymore. Let me just put all that back together and let’s give that a try. Well, that’s hot. It’s getting a little bit too hot for my hand. Let’s try cooling it down to a desired temperature we’d shower under. That’s a nice temperature, and it seems consistent. Yeah, I think we’ve cracked it guys.

Alrighty, so job done. Still yet to find an issue on the Stiebel Eltron LCD hot water systems, but what I have found is a water restrictor issue on the shower. So next time you think you might have an issue with your hot water system and you can narrow it down to just being in the shower, then give that a try. That might save a little bit of money before you call us out. All right guys, thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video – that was a nice helpful little hint for you – and we’ll catch you in the next video. Take care, goodbye.

Hi everybody, it’s Richard at Plumbdog, so I’ve just come out to a property where the customers just brought me around the back of the house. He’s showing me his hot water system and he’s asked me to come out here and service it. He seems to think it’s working quite hard, he can hear sort of water travelling through and he sort of thinks his water bills are a bit higher than usual.

Before I get started, if the water bills are quite high and you can hear running water this will point in me towards the fact that there might be a bit of a water leak instead of an actual system fault.

I’m going to go out to the front of the property and just going to check if we’re losing any water there. At the water meter, I’m just going to perform a five-minute test and see if it’s moving at all. If the needle moves, there’s a water leak. Every full circle, every time it goes around 360 degrees that’s one litre.

It’s not moving much but it’s definitely moving. You can see that needle is moving – it’s just moving really slowly. If you blink, you’d miss it. This is the reason we do tests over five minutes.

I’m going to a see if I can figure out where that leak might be. I’ll isolate the hot water system first and see if it’s on the hotline or the cold line. I have retested as I’ve isolated the water cold feed into the hot water system to see if it made any difference and it didn’t. That means is that there is a small water leak but it’s on the cold line not the hotline.

This would mean that the job has now transitioned from hot water servicing to leak detection, which are two totally different specialized services of ours. Have a look at the video to determine the next steps utilised to resolve the leak.

• A burst pipe is often reflected by a sudden increase in your water bill.
• Contacting a licensed plumber to detect and fix your leak will save time, money and precious water.
• Be sure to take care of pipes and avoid damaging them when installing so as to reduce the chance of a burst pipe later on.
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Finding the source of a leak can be both time consuming and frustrating. The mystery of what mess you could find beneath the ground may be daunting, but with Plumbdog on hand we can save you time, endless digging to find your leak and many, many litres of water. Here Darius shows us how the team uses their specialist equipment to quickly find the source of the leak and fix the problem.

BURST PIPE
Darius arrives at a call out for a burst pipe and with some initial checks realises the problem is external to the house coming from the cold water main.

FUJI LEAK DETECTOR TIME
Like a stethoscope for leak detection, Darius uses the Fuji Leak Detector to test the area around the suspected leak. Navigating his way closer to the water metre he finds the correct spot to target his digging.

UNEARTHING THE PROBLEM
With the removal of a few pavers and a bit of digging, Darius finds the source of the water leak with damp soil near the copper pipe joining the polypropylene pipe. Turning the water main back on confirms this is the source of the leak, with water starting to gush out of the poly pipe. With a little more digging Darius reveals a number of damage points in the poly pipe that have weakened and split open.

AVOIDING THE ISSUE
The damage found was most likely caused during the installation phase of the build. The pipe was relatively new and should have lasted a lot longer, however the pipe looked as though it had been dragged and damaged, weakening the pipe. A nice reminder that taking care of your plumbing materials (like Plumbdog do!) will mean less hassles down the line.

THE SOLUTION
Darius decides the most efficient way to repair the damaged pipe is to extend the copper pipe down to where there is some undamaged poly pipe to connect to. Darius is careful to add a bend to the copper pipe extension to help relax the angle of the join to the poly pipe. Sharper angled joins are a possible contributing factor to damage and weak spots in the pipe.

Plumbdog uses specialist equipment, in this case the REMS press gun to join the copper pipe extension to the existing copper pipe. The press gun is used to crimp the sections of pipe together. A Plasson fitting is used at the other end of the copper pipe extension to connect to the existing undamaged poly pipe.
Tip: Always check that the Plasson fittings have the grab ring around the right way as sometimes they can be put in the fitting back to front.

TESTS AND CHECKS
Plumbdog takes pride in getting the job done well which is why the final checks are so important. Darius turns the mains water back on and runs the nearest tap while visually inspecting for leaks around the newly installed pipe. The water metre is also tested for a period of time to ensure that no water is being lost anywhere else.

GOT A LEAK?
Let Plumbdog play their favourite detective game!
If you’re in the Greater Perth area, invite us round to find your leak. We’ll bring our favourite gadgets and will be happy to get the problem sorted for you and save you time and precious water!

Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel, like and subscribe to stay up to date with our latest videos.

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• Updating your wall mounted taps can be challenging as different manufacturers may use different sized parts.
• Depending on the new tapware chosen, swapping over a wall mounted tap might be possible without getting out the jackhammer!
• Darius from Plumbdog has some fun completing the final piece to the puzzle, changing the bathtub mixer tap to match the new matte black finish in the rest of the bathroom.
• Don’t forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Changing mixer tapware that is surface mounted is easy to do, but how do you change tapware that’s built into the wall without opening up the wall? In this VLOG Darius shows us some tricks of the trade to make this swap possible.

BACK IN BLACK
A quick tour round the ensuite bathroom shows the bathroom getting a little facelift with a new matte black shower head and surface mounted sink mixer tap. These fixtures are relatively easy to change and give the bathroom a modern sleek finish. But when it comes to changing the wall mounted mixer tap for the bathtub, things are a little less straightforward.

CHROME INVESTIGATIONS
The existing chrome wall mounted tap mixer body may not suit the new tapware. To find out, the Plumbdog team will have to dismantle the mixer tap and see if parts can be easily changed over. It’s not always possible to change out old components for new as manufacturers like to change small things to make it nearly impossible…. but when you’re a clever sausage like Darius it can be done.

OUT WITH THE OLD… AND SOME OF THE NEW
When dismantling the new mixer tap there is a brass mixer tap body and a cartridge which mates onto the face of the tap body. These pieces fit together and are what create a seal to stop the water flow. In theory, the brass tap body can be discarded as there is already one mounted in the wall from the existing tapware.

When dismantling the existing chrome mixer tap, Plumbdog is extra careful not to damage parts just in case it can be swapped and the old tap needs to be reassembled, but thankfully this is not the case here.

SQUARE PEG ROUND HOLE
Like poetry in motion, Darius cuts a slightly larger hole in the wall to allow the new square black mixer tap fixing to slide in and screw on to the existing brass plate in the wall.

With a bucket at the ready for any water that wants to drain from the pipes in the wall, Darius continues to assemble the new tap using the cartridge from the old tap as it is the correct size to create the best seal.

Piece by piece the tap is replaced using a little from the old and a little from the new.

SPOUTING WITH JOY
With the mixer tap successfully assembled, the final piece to the puzzle is fitting the spout where Darius finds he needs to cut back the wall piece to ensure the spout sits flush against the wall.

Using specialised equipment called a spud or nipple cutter (ouch!), he cuts back the spud by a few threads. This equipment prevents damage to the wall that could occur if using a hacksaw for the job.

Extra care is taken with a drop sheet to protect the bathtub and bathroom floor and to catch any mess.

SOME FINAL CHECKS AND TIPS
Always seal around the tap to ensure no water can run back into the wall.
Take care of your fellow plumbers. Greasing the stainless steel grub screw in the tap will help prevent the metals from seizing together, allowing the next person to remove the screw with a little less cursing!

Turn on the water, check for leaks around the mixer tap and check that hot is hot and cold is cold!

Plumbdog take great pride in their knowledge and have specialised equipment to help you achieve the best result, especially when things aren’t as straightforward as you had hoped.

If you’re in the Greater Perth area and want to save yourself from a date with the jackhammer, Plumbdog is your wingman. Give us a call today!
Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel, like and subscribe to stay up to date with our latest videos.

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