Blog: The dripping overflow

It was a grey cold Tuesday when we got the call. The customer had waited to call us until he needed a radiator fitting in his conservatory, because the fact he had a dripping overflow and a horrible noise whenever the hot water had been used - was something he had come to live with. The usual 'I can put that one off, not worth calling out a plumber' was the underlying reason...

This could have cost the customer much, much more in damage and inconvenience - for what was a few pounds to fix. He was very lucky to have called us when he did... The moral of this story is; Please do not ignore those little things. They are warning signs of worse problems to come.

So we attended the customer's house and on hearing the pipe noise immediately checked the cold water tank in the loft. Sure enough this was a simple fix and explained why the overflow was also running. As water was being called off from the tank in the loft the valve was not shutting off fully, causing the pipe noise.

What was far worse though was that the water level had risen, despite the overflow. Water was being added quicker than it was allowed to escape via the overflow (caused by a blockage in the overflow pipe) so this was nudging to a point where water would flood from the top of the tank. By the time this would have been discovered and fixed the customer could have faced damage and repair costs, all for what was a 5 minute fix.