[Yendor]

Hi all.

Need some advice. I recently had some security screens fitted to my property. During instal they managed to snap the handle off the mixer for my kitchen sink. They did replace the mixer. The problem is now on cold there is very little flow and pressure. Hot is normal.

Company in question are claiming it’s not their problem, as they have "replaced what they broke". That dose not help me.

Some info I hope will help.

Property is about 10 years old. We run off tank with mains (trickle feed) topping up our tank when needed. Trickle feed also feeds the cold water to our kitchen sink.

Is it possible we have a problem with our plumbing now? Our did they install the wrong mixer (high pressure, low pressure?) Or am I just unlucky and it’s a faulty mixer?

 

[GUzdute]

Check the hoses going to mixer for flow restrictors.

 

[Yendor]

Check the hoses going to mixer for flow restrictors.

Mixer came with it's own hoses. Would this restrictor be where this hose connects to the original house fitting? or possibly near the mixer?

 

[GUzdute]

Mixer came with it's own hoses. Would this restrictor be where this hose connects to the original house fitting? or possibly near the mixer?

Yes , is a small plastic star looking restrictor. Also check if stopcocks under sink have been turned fully on. And you're correct there is a difference between high pressure and low pressure mixers.

 

[Overboard]

Property is about 10 years old. We run off tank with mains (trickle feed) topping up our tank when needed. Trickle feed also feeds the cold water to our kitchen sink.

I'm not sure what "trickle feed" is but when buying a mixer for tank fed systems you need to specify "gravity fed" mixers. Gravity fed mixers can be used on mains pressure systems as well but you will need to use some sort of restrictor however they usually come with them.

 

[Yendor]

I'm not sure what "trickle feed" is but when buying a mixer for tank fed systems you need to specify "gravity fed" mixers. Gravity fed mixers can be used on mains pressure systems as well but you will need to use some sort of restrictor however they usually come with them.

My understanding of trickle feed is that the council only supplies low pressure mains. Basically so we can top our water tanks if no rain and supply clean drinking water to our kitchen sink. The rest of our house's water is supplied from our water tank via an electric pump. Is this classed as low pressure? or are you just referring to gravity fed system? I was thinking the water supplied via my pump would be high pressure and the council mains low pressure? This is why I am wondering if they installed the wrong type mixer.

I will have to disconnect the cold supply hose and check if there is a restrictor in the hose I can remove.

I still have the old mixer and there is no restrictor in the hose. Is there a way of telling by looking at the mixer what type it is?

 

[45/70]

@plumma

 

[plumma]

@plumma

I PM'd him direct.

 

[45/70]

Your a good man.

 

[Yendor]

Thanks for your help guys. I just connected the cold water back up to the old mixer and it works fine. Pressure and flow. So problem has to be with the new mixer.

I checked for a restrictor in the hose for the new, there is none. Comparing the inside diameter of the hose for the old and new mixer, the new mixer hose is much smaller, could this be how it's restricted?

 

[Overboard]

How about reusing the old hose to see how it goes?

 

[Yendor]

How about reusing the old hose to see how it goes?

The hoses are crimped onto copper pipes. On the old mixer it looks like the copper pipes might unscrew from the base of the mixer. Not sure if the new mixer is the same. I will have to remove the new mixer and have a look. Just need the time to do it.

 

[BeeP]

i was going to tell you to swap the hot and cold lines to the mixer to see if it persists with the cold
but apparently the culprit seems to be your hose

 

[Petersen]

Take the aerator out of the end of the new mixer (bit that the water comes out of) there is a filter in it. Guarantee it’ll have crap in it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Overboard]

Take the aerator out of the end of the new mixer (bit that the water comes out of) there is a filter in it. Guarantee it’ll have crap in it.

But he says it works fine on hot water but not on cold. How does crap only get in the way of cold water when it mixes with hot water in the body of the tap and the aerator is at the end of the spout?

 

[Petersen]

But he says it works fine on hot water but not on cold. How does crap only get in the way of cold water when it mixes with hot water in the body of the tap and the aerator is at the end of the spout?

Good point. Plumbing can be a funny thing some times.
The hoses that are crimped onto the copper do unscrew, just use a set of multigrips. They should have a rubber seal on the top thread going into the tap so you can try swapping them.
Other thing to try is disconnect the tap and turn the water on to check the pressure coming out of the outlets. Hopefully you’ve got mini stops on it. Could be the rubber half blocking the outlet or a bit of Teflon.

 

[jbrizz]

I'm not a plumber but it sounds like the tap they gave you is for high pressure mains and low pressure hot. You're running it with pretty low pressure on both sides so only the set that was designed for low pressure (hot) is any good.

Probably just installed the wrong type of tap.

 

[Overboard]

Since the hot supply has a pump and the cold does not I would swap the hoses so the big bore hose is on the cold and the small bore hose is on the hot. KO

 

[Yendor]

I plan on swapping the hoses over on the weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

 

[Yendor]

We have had a win. I wasn't able to remove the old hose from the bottom of the copper pipe but I was able to remove the copper pipe from the base of the mixer. Swapped the cold hoses over and reinstalled the new mixer. Flow now from both cold and hot is back to normal.

The size difference between the old and new hoses is really noticeable when you put the hoses side by side