Heater Failure And Its Freezing

[shelaghfishface]

its off.. both sides were exactly the same,so i just took the hose between the heater and the return off and added the hose from the pump directly onto the return pipe. its secure ,so its fine till tommow and ill sort it out properly then

also the fact that the hose im using is a little short is dragging the pump nearer to the water surface in the sump, i just added some more water to make it safe overnight

panic over.. i hope

thankyou very much again AK
i actually thought about the weir grills already, common sense really.. if youre not panicking

 

[AK77]

its off.. both sides were exactly the same,so i just took the hose between the heater and the return off and added the hose from the pump directly onto the return pipe. its secure ,so its fine till tommow and ill sort it out properly then

also the fact that the hose im using is a little short is dragging the pump nearer to the water surface in the sump, i just added some more water to make it safe overnight

panic over.. i hope

thankyou very much again AK
i actually thought about the weir grills already, common sense really.. if youre not panicking

You're welcome Shelagh. Glad everything is ok. Just a thought, have you moved the return pump into the middle section? That should make the distance shorter so the pump isn't as high up in the water.

One a seperate note, how is your tank for syphon noise from the DT to the sump? Could you post a picture from above the tank to show where that mystery pipe goes??

 

[shelaghfishface]

there is a lot of cheato in that middle part, it would knacker my pump if any got into it.. wouldnt it? ( obviously i can move it but bound to leave a small amount behind)
theres a good 2 inches of water above the pump in where it is.. so ill just leave it? i can top up first thing if needs be
yes actullay the sump is very very noisy- weve just got use to it
ok ill go and take a pic now

 

[shelaghfishface]

didnt need a pic did it

no idea what its for then.

cant get a good one as its a bit dark under there, but you can get the generall idea

 

[AK77]

I'm a bit stumped now . I get that the pipe thats poking through the weir is doing surface skimming and feeding the sump but, where does the water that enters the weir go? Does the other pipe have a tee section on it futher down in the weir and is feeding the sump too?

 

[shelaghfishface]

there are 3 pipes

1st is the one with the red tap ( from wier to sump)
2nd is the one that pokes up ( higher than the water level

) buts sits in the same (1st) section as pipe 1
3rd is the one that is flowing from the sump ( via the hose that we just changed over) out of that "acoss the wier- pipe" return

the first is at tank floor level -literally going from the sump to the drilled hole at the floor of the tank- its the only pipe that actually carries water from the tank- that middle one seems redundant - hadnt even noticed that till now

 

[AK77]

Ahh! Ok so the one poking through the weir grills is the return pipe to the tank. Sorry I was looking for a green hose lol. Doh!

So the one with the red valve one it is the one feeding the sump and the other pipe is just poking above the water level? Is there a tee piece in that middle one at all or just a straight piece of pipe??

The pipe feeding the sump is essentially just a bulkhead in the base of the tank, which the white downpipe connects to in the cabinet??

 

[john.o]

 

[shelaghfishface]

no its straight
yes

gosh now im confused

i just ( out of interest) changed the fuse on the heater
put it in a bowl of water,
1st attempt small bang- in the heater
2nd attempt small fire in the unit and a small bang
3rd attempt ( with a 5amp as id run out of 3) blew the lights in the house
so it wasnt "not working" but was if you get me

needless to say its had the cable cut and is in the bin and i wont be using one of these again

i still have 2x 300w heaters in teh tank its now up to 21c - can i leave them in overnight or take one out??

 

[AK77]

The pipe that is on the left hand side should have a T piece on it, then a 90 bend facing down wards the top of the pipe should be capped off then a 6mm hole drilled in it with a piece of air line and a air valve to control the amount of air the duso can suck in, the valve in the cabinet is then used to fine tune the water level in the weir box. The pipe on the right hand side is for the return but it looks as if you have this draining into the sump and the return just going up the back of the tank soft piped? Not that this is problem but if you make the changes to the duso you should notice the difference in noise it will make it a little quieter that's for sure.

Ahhhhhh! Thankyou John!! That makes sense now. I was looking for a tee piece somewhere in there and from the pictures, couldn't quite fathom what they'd done with the pipework. So essentially all that's missing is a nice durso cap to make this tank virtually silent!

So basically what Shelagh needs to do is close that valve off somewhat, to allow the water level to rise in weir box, until it submerges the tee section. Probably best positioned an inch of so below the weir grills to reduce the cascading noise. Water may come out of both pipes, depending on the rating of the sump pump I assume. All you need to do Shelagh is get a plumbing fitting that sits on top of that white pipe (at a guess I'd say 32mm) drill hole in it, and you tank should be near silent!!

I think John will definitely be on Shelaghs Christmas card list next year lol

 

[shelaghfishface]

haha and i thought it was meant to be like this (noisy)

thankyou both, ill have a man look at that tommorow ( joke!!) i`ll get onto it sometime tommorow and let you know how i get on

yes he is on the list indeed

 

[john.o]

Nope sorry
my mistake gives me 1 min to draw some pics up

 

[shelaghfishface]

Nope sorry

my mistake gives me 1 min to draw some pics up

no worries john.. look forward to them

 

[AK77]

Ok. Let me explain it a bit better.

Shelagh, what you should have inside the weir is something like this pictured below. Somewhere along the length of the white pipe in the middle (the one that sticks up next the the return pipe) should be is a tee section with a 90 degree fitting on it like in the picture below. The other pipe in the cabinet has a valve on it is kind of like like your bath plug. Depending on how much water you let through this valve, dictates the height of the water inside the weir. The amount of water entering the weir depends on the rating of the return pump, so by fine tuning the valve like John mentioned, you adjust the height of the water.

Have a look at www.dursostandpipes.com

Edit* Another way to think about the set up is this. Imagine the weir is your bath. The pipe with the red valve on it is like your waste pipe/plug. If you shut it off completely, its like having the plug in the bath. If you open it up slightly, this is like pulling the bath plug up a little bit and lets water out... so it controls the level of water in the bath. At the same time, you have water entering the bath via the tap. So by adjusting the amount of water exiting past the bath plug, controls the amount of water in the bath lol.

The tee section / durso is like the overflow of your bath. The water entering your bath via the tap is fixed at full on (return pump). You need to adjust the bath plug until the water reaches just above the level of the overflow, yet wont cause the bath to overflow.

 

[john.o]

Ok if you look at the pic the the yellow pipe is the feed to the sump you use the valve to control the level of water in the weir the green pipe is a failsafe pipe just in case a snail ect blocks the yellow one the red pipe is the return. The problem with this set up is the noise {water falling from the top of the tank to the tank floor if you could mod the yellow pipe so it was like a duso then this would quieten this system down quite considerably just put the T piece in about 2 inch below the weir combs so the water does not fall as far


yes just like that one ak77