Video[s] of the week

Okay, here’s the story… 

This week we’ve been working on a house in Stanway, Colchester and like most homes that we work on, it has 2 overflow pipes normally coming out of the Fascia board. These pipes are connected to various systems in the loft but 99% of the time, one pipe is the overflow to the cold water storage tank and the other pipe is the overflow for the central heating expansion tank. These then are the most common connections and reflect that most properties still have a older style gas boiler with ‘wet’ central heating with radiators and still have cold water storage in the loft. 

Just an aside here with an explanation. Newer properties have pressurised water systems and heat water on demand with a combi boiler and do not store cold water in a tank in the loft. So every customer we have, is always asked as part of our survey, if these overflows are still in use as a new Fascia board looks much neater without pipes sticking out of them.

At this point in this dialogue, nobody has got any idea where this all going but – as usual – please stay with me on this one, even if it seems that I’m now changing the subject a little…

It’s also amazing how many birds we see perched on these overflow pipes, drinking from them, aided by the age of the building as older pipes suffer from degradation by ultra violet radiation from the sun and quite often the top section of pipe just falls away which make it much easier for the birds to stand there while drinking. The older buildings also seem to have the water level in the loft tank higher, right up to overflow pipe level when there is no need and the level could be much lower, but again it comes down to age and wear & tear, with a well worn out ball cock permitting the level to rise higher over time until a little dribble develops.