Carrying on from my sparky question, here is one for plumbers!
a 4 storey property, but the mains water pressure at the top is only 1bar with no taps open. This is helpfully where the shower is located.
As such, I fitted a Mira shower last year as previous tenants complained (correctly) the old one kept going cold. The Mira safety cutout works at 0.7
Bar so I thought that was job done.
Tenants have changed, and now have complained that sometimes this shower goes cold, so the pressure is still an issue.
Looks like I have 2 solutions. One is to change the shower to work off the combi boiler, bit of faff with pipework, and as an aside I am keen on these
rentals having an electric shower as when the boiler does go on the blink, at least they can still shower.
The other option is a Homeboost type pump to boost the water pressure. BUT I would prefer to install it so it just boosts the shower, however the
instructions all say the pump must be installed before any taps etc
Has anybody got any experience of these things? I suspect the Salamander product is the neatest solution, and I hope have a decent life? Or is there a
better solution?
Cheers
Clive
Just change to a pumped electric shower?
https://www.bathshack.com/mira-elite-qt-9-8kw-pumped-electric-shower.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwm9vPBRCQARIsABAIQYf7_lldNRDzzZrkeHP9U2QYScRm7sYe5yS_oDZzZkOB9p
EftMahCc4aAo3pEALw_wcB
quote:
Originally posted by loggyboy
Just change to a pumped electric shower?
https://www.bathshack.com/mira-elite-qt-9-8kw-pumped-electric-shower.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwm9vPBRCQARIsABAIQYf7_lldNRDzzZrkeHP9U2QYScRm7sYe5yS_oDZzZkOB9p EftMahCc4aAo3pEALw_wcB
Can you not use a single 2 bar pump just for the electric shower?
Is there no roof space to add a small tank? wouldnt need to be much as mains would keep it topped up nearly as fast it could be used, effectively a swirl pot!
quote:
Originally posted by loggyboy
Is there no roof space to add a small tank? wouldnt need to be much as mains would keep it topped up nearly as fast it could be used, effectively a swirl pot!
Might be a pipework faff to run it directly from the combi boiler, but our last 3 showers have run this way and worked without fault. If you can do it I'd go that way.
I installed a salamander pump about a year ago after my bathroom referb (switched from bath to electric shower), and it's been faultless so
far.
Dead easy to install and makes a huge difference to the water flow (didn't realise just how bad our water flow was until I installed it). I
installed mine just after the mains water stop-cock.
It only comes on when flow is below a pre-set minimum and the speed is variable depending on how much boost the water flow needs, so when we turn the
taps on to fill up the kettle (for example) it doesn't switch on at all, but when the shower is on, it runs continuously.
Only downside for me is it's slightly louder than I was expecting it to be. Nothing too intrusive or alarming, but wasn't quite expecting it
to as loud as it is (plus the noise transmits through the pipes so we hear it upstairs as well).
there is no roofspace. Well, 12". Victorian house, pitched roof but central section is flat!! Built like that.
If you fit a booster pump anywhere after a tap, it would suck air if those taps were on. (I presume that is why they have to be fitted before any
taps)
Richard, was that the Homeboost? looks pretty small, and seems to be supported solely on the pipework? says it must be fitted to solid pipes, not
flexi's. But I wonder if mounting it to solid pipes, but with full-bore flexis after a metre may help noise.....
Thanks all, all this has focused my mind (a real task these days)
"If you fit a booster pump anywhere after a tap, it would suck air if those taps were on" - that's a good point, I guess it could, tho' probably wouldn't unless very close to the pump or tap turned on absolutely full, with 0.7 bar to start with you have a fair bit of "top up" coming in, but if it sucks air that is a major problem. Could you fit one way valves to the taps so it couldn't pull water back from that pipe run?
Yeah it was the homeboost unit.
Mine is mounted on solid pipe, but the unit is quite heavy (even though it's small) so I made sure the pipe was supported either side of the
pump.
I suppose naively I was expecting hardly any noise from the unit, however that said, for me the noise really isn't not an issue. It's no
where near as loud as a dishwasher or washing machine, but it is louder than a fridge running.
Flexi's will help stop the noise travelling, but you will still hear the pump in whichever room it gets put in.
quote:
Originally posted by russbost
"If you fit a booster pump anywhere after a tap, it would suck air if those taps were on" - that's a good point, I guess it could, tho' probably wouldn't unless very close to the pump or tap turned on absolutely full, with 0.7 bar to start with you have a fair bit of "top up" coming in, but if it sucks air that is a major problem. Could you fit one way valves to the taps so it couldn't pull water back from that pipe run?