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Dealing With An Air-Locked Pipe
Dealing with an air-locked pipe is a great DIY technique to learn, as it could stop you having to ring a plumber and paying a hefty bill.
A sure sign of an air-locked pipe is when a tap is opened and no water comes out.
Right, so here’s what to do. Get yourself a length of hose with the correct clips at each end which will allow you to secure it on the taps in question.
Secure one end of the hose onto the tap which appears blocked. The other end you secure to a working direct feed tap, which is usually the cold water tap situated on the kitchen sink. With the hose securely in place, open both taps at the same time which will use the pressure of the mains water to act as a powerful force which expels the air out of the pipes. Keep this up for at least ten minutes and then close the air-locked tap first. If it hasn’t worked straight away, then keep trying until you find that the air lock has been banished. Once it’s all done and dusted, remove the hose, but take it off the higher of both taps first, then take it off the lower one and drain it into the sink.
If you think that you have an air lock in more than one tap, then clear it from the lowest one, as this should clear all airlocks in the system.
If this doesn’t work and the problem is in the cold water pipes, fed by the cistern in the attic, then you could try another method of blowing out the airlock. Take a length of hose and push it into the outlet pipe in the tank. At the other end of the pipe, open the tap, and blow through the hose to get rid of the lock.
If both methods fail, then there is another trick you can try, although its involves a fair bit of effort. First, drain the system completely by opening all the taps and turning off the water feed. Once the system is drained of all water, visit each tap and close them until they are roughly three-quarters closed. Then, making sure all the taps are thus positioned, turn the water supply back on. Go around to the taps again and fiddle with them until a steady, but light flow of water comes from each. Go around them again, starting with the lowest taps first, and adjust them up to the half-open mark. Do the same again, in the same order, until all the taps are now in the three-quarters open position. Make sure all the air has been dispelled, and turn all taps to a position in which the flow is minimal. As the last step, close all the taps. The system should have no air inside.
So there you are, dealing with an air-locked pipe needn’t be so difficult after all.
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