The tenants had lived with a trickle of hot water for over a year. The cause was a gate valve that turned but no longer opened. One valve, one visit, full pressure.
The tenants of a landlord's flat in Oldbury had been getting extremely poor pressure from their hot taps for over a year. Several engineers had been out and none had found the cause. A shower pump had been installed, which made little difference. The landlord rang us directly and asked us to take a look. We found the gate valve on the vented hot water cylinder had snapped internally: the handle turned, so it looked fine, but the gate inside was no longer connected to it and had been left mostly closed. The tenants were getting just enough water past it to think it was a pressure problem. We replaced the gate valve with a full-bore lever valve, and they had hot water at proper pressure from the taps for the first time in over a year. Another repair done, another happy customer.
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The landlord of a flat in Oldbury rang us directly. His tenants had been complaining of extremely poor pressure from the hot taps for over a year. It was not for want of trying: several engineers had visited and none had found the cause, and at some point a shower pump had been installed to force the issue, which made little difference. The tenants had, in the end, simply lived with it.
We started at the hot water cylinder, a vented copper cylinder fed from a cold tank in the loft, rather than the taps, because poor pressure on every hot outlet and normal pressure on the cold points to something between the cylinder and the pipework, not to the taps themselves. On the cylinder pipework was an ordinary brass gate valve. The handle turned freely. Inside, the gate had corroded and snapped off its spindle. You can see it in the second photo: the gate sitting in the bore, mostly closed, no longer connected to anything. At some point the valve had been turned off and back on, the handle had turned as normal, and the gate had stayed where it was. The tenants were getting just enough water past it to make it look like a pressure problem rather than a blockage, and a shower pump downstream of a nearly closed valve has nothing to pump.
We removed the gate valve and fitted a full-bore lever valve in its place. A lever valve has a ball with a hole through it the full size of the pipe, so when it is open there is nothing in the way of the water, and the lever shows at a glance whether it is open or shut. The hot water came through at the pressure the cylinder had been trying to deliver all along. The tenants were extremely happy, and so was the landlord, who had been paying for visits that fixed nothing.
Gate valves are common on older cylinders and cold water tanks. They work by winding a metal gate down across the pipe. Over the years the gate corrodes, the spindle threads wear, and one of two things happens: the valve seizes, or the gate parts company with the spindle and the handle turns without doing anything. The second failure is the dangerous one for diagnosis, because the valve looks and feels fine. Whenever we find a gate valve on a cylinder feed we recommend swapping it for a full-bore lever valve. It costs little, it will not fail this way, and the next engineer can see its position without guessing.
A year of engineer visits, a shower pump, and tenants who had given up: this job cost the landlord far more in callouts and goodwill than the valve did. When a fault has beaten more than one engineer, the answer is usually not another part but a proper look at the whole system from the source. That is what we do on every repair, and it is why we finish most of them in one visit. Our landlord page covers how we handle repairs and certificates for rental properties.
Because the fault is on the hot side only: between the cylinder and the taps. On a vented cylinder the usual suspects are a partly closed or failed gate valve, a blocked or scaled pipe, or a cold water tank in the loft that is not filling properly. It is almost never the taps, and fitting a pump before finding the restriction, as had happened here, just pushes against the blockage.
A gate valve winds a metal gate across the pipe on a threaded spindle. When the gate corrodes and snaps off the spindle, the handle still turns the spindle but the gate stays put. From outside the valve looks and feels perfectly normal. It is one of the reasons we replace gate valves with lever valves whenever we find them on a cylinder.
A valve with a ball inside that has a hole through it the full diameter of the pipe. A quarter turn of the lever opens or closes it, there is no restriction when it is open, and you can see its position at a glance. It is the right valve for a cylinder feed and it does not fail the way an old gate valve does.
Yes, and they are some of our favourite jobs. If a fault has beaten more than one engineer it usually means the whole system has not been looked at from the source, so that is where we start. Tell us what has already been tried when you book, so we do not repeat it.
Job attended and photographed by our engineers in Oldbury, April 2026. Written up by Saeed Iqbal, the engineer who leads Synergy Gas & Plumbing (Gas Safe registered 594385). More recent jobs in the area are on our Oldbury page, and every job we write up is on the case studies index.
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