Burst water main - issue fixed, but now no supply to toilets and warm taps

Burst water main 1km from house.

Water supply to houses in estate affected.

Issue now fixed, other houses have water back.

But there is an issue in our house:

• The flow from the mains to the cold tap in kitchen is fine.
• The warm tap in kitchen is flowing.
• warm taps in 2x WC are flowing
• but the cold taps in the bathrooms are not flowing.
• Toilets aren't flushing

I went to attic, there are two tanks, large and small.
The large tank is 3/4 full, looks normal, and as I depressed the ball-cock, water flowed in from the mains rubber pipe.

The small tank looks normal, and as I depressed the ball-cock, water flowed in.

Any advice? I appreciate any help

Not a plumber, but I wonder if you might have an airlock?

Also not a plumber but I agree- sounds like an airlock

Yes, my searches on web are leading in that direction.

Internal airlocks​

If your cold tap is working but your hot tap is not, then you may have an airlock in your internal plumbing. Follow these tips to check for and clear an airlock.



But, the cold flow to our taps (other than mains) is not working?

It's equally possible to have an air lock in the cold tap feed from the attic tank.

Try the suggested hose from the cold water mains tap at the kitchen sink to one of the bathroom room cold taps.

If they are all mixer taps you need to set the tap to the fully open cold position. You might need to make up a homemade tap adapter to fit the hose to the tap. A piece of bicycle inner tube might do the trick

As above, I had a similar issue last year and hooked up a length of garden hose to run from the kitchen tap to the one not flowing. I taped the hose on as best I could, far from a perfect fit but good enough to get enough pressure to force the air out.

Do it as a two person job. One holding the hose tightly at the bathroom and a second person to operate the kitchen tap.
Just is case you end up with water squirting around the bathroom.

S class said:

Do it as a two person job.

Click to expand...

Good call, I had to do it alone, so used a towel over the remote joint cut down on the clean up.

Thanks.

We tried it on an upstairs bath, single spout.

We blocked the outlet, as best as possible, using a marigold glove. Not a great solution.

We opened both taps, with flow from just the warm tap.

After maybe a minute of holding a hand tight around the marigold glove wrapped around the outlet and spout, we let go.

We repeated that a few times.

After a few tries, we turned off both taps, then opened the cold tap. There was warm water flowing out of the cold tap, but eventually, that flow turned cold, but it is a slow flow.


We kept at it in the bath, opening both taps, running the warm flow, blocking the warm flow, and eventually things got better.

The toilets have now filled.