Just got the keys to our new home today, so eagerly spent the day cleaning the place up.
Anyhow the water downstairs works fine but the upstairs doesn’t, I climbed up into the attic and took a look at the header tank, now I don’t have a lot of experience of how they work but it appears to me that there is a pipe cut(at the top of the picture) and sealed which would be where the cold water inlet pipe?

Header Tank by bruce.money, on Flickr

Could people have a look and see if they agree.

I agree, it also says do not use on it. Probably for a reason.

Has it now got a combi blioer? that looks to me like a redundant tank for an open central heating boiler. its far too small to be the tank to supply water to taps

No combi boiler, truth be told i dont know what type of boiler it is, but its ancient. Just above the header tank is an insulated tank (also empty) which i assume is for hot water.

It does say do not use, that is due to the property being sold by a equity release company, literally everything had those stickers on so I can only ignore them if i want to use anything, I’ve decided not to use the gas boiler as i don’t trust it, we are planning a large overhaul of the property including central heating and rewiring, so it’s not a big deal but wouldn’t mind having running water in the meantime for the toilet and basin

Yes,
Its a header tank for the central heating.
I would say drained down as the property was empty over the cold spell.
Normal on an empty property.

Re-connect the pipe and vent system, check for leaks and turn on boiler. Best done by a heating engineer really as there could be a few issues. Hence the DO NOT USE TAPE.

Ask Bear….

its definately a feed and expansion tank for your central heating the top insulated copper pipe that hangs over the top is where the hot ‘ expanded water comes direct from your ch system. the pipe attached to the tank base bottom left is the pipe that feeds the rads. the capped pipe is the cold water feed which would be connected to the ball valve which fills the tank. cant see an overflow ( normally plastic ) though.
most repossesions have this danger death dont use tape all over its thier get out of jail free card BUT it could be dodgy.. getting water in this tank will make NO difference to the water flow from your taps..

what they said but the cut pipe looks capped from me so you could just reconnect it

Repo houses have that n everything you have no real choice but to reconnect and see what happens

if you do not know what you are doing get someone in
it is header tank for heating and it is not for cold water beyond that who knows without filling it and your boiler.

lack of overflow is an issue as well if something goes wrong

Cheers for all the input, Its given me a starting place to research further.

Looking closely at the pic, I’d say the pipe on the left is the overflow and the outlet pipe to the rads is directly below the inlet.

You say there’s an insulated tank near the CH tank. This tank will also have a header tank that feeds it (may be incorporated into the tank, when you look under the insulation it’s actually 2 tanks, one above the other). Find the header tank for the insulated tank and reconnect it and that should give you water upstairs.