Plumbing air locks

Of all the money for nothing jobs I do, plumbing air locks are possibly the easiest and quickest to rectify.

With a bit of coaching, you'll have the water back on in no time at all.

What generally happens, is some one turns the water off to make a repair. They nail the repair job, turn the water back on to find

AAAAAAAAhhh:(

No water

The other senario is when someone runs out of water on a pump supply system. They get there tank filled up but still no water.

Either way, we're going to clear this sucker right now.

Well, not right now....Just before we jump in. I need to give you a bit of background that may help in determining the problem.

(Put down your wrench for 5 minutes and learn:)

The common theme with these two senarios is both are low pressure systems.

That is they feed the house via a roof/header tank that sits in your ceiling, on your roof or on a tank stand.

1st thing to check is does this tank have water in it.

No?

Then your problem is not an plumbing air lock and you need to go to my home page to search for other answers. If the anwers yes we're on the right track.

Why do you only get a plumbing air lock on low pressure systems.

Because air can only hold back a colomn of water to a hieght of approx 12metres/40ft

As most town pressure supplies operate well in excess of this, any plumbing air locks get blown through.

Right back to your air lock.

The reason your've airlocked, is your pipes running from your Roof/header tank either rise away from your header tank (They should fall away)

Or they fall but then rise some where along the line before they descend down a wall.

Notice how the pipes fall away in this system.

If this doesn't sound like you, skip this and go to the easy solution. ( This won't rectify the problem long term but it will get you running again, until the next time you run out of water.)

The plumbing air locks solution

Try this

2. Turn on hot tap.

3. Turn on cold supply.

4. Run for 20 seconds.

And that's it folks

Your hot water should start to flow:)

Do a twirl and repeat out loud.

"I AM THE MAN"

If your hot and cold are on low pressure.

Go to the cylinder cupboard and open your drain valve, for 30 seconds.

If you don't have one go to your closest gully and look for a pipe with a threaded plug on the end.

Undo the plug and again let the water run for 30 seconds.

Quickly insert the plug back into the socket or nut and tighten.

(expect to get wet doing this and if the water gets too hot let it go. Turn off your power to cylinder then once empty refill system and try again.

If its your cold that airlocked you will need to find a joint under your house. Make sure you have the right pipe.

Loosen connection but not all the way, let it run for about 2 minutes then retighten joint. You will hear the air passing through in the pipes.

Congratulations: if you came this far you'll tackle anything. No come from plumbing air locks to plumbing-troubleshooter.com