I have pretty low mains water pressure (just over 1 bar) and a fairly low flow rate to the taps. Thames Water won't do anything because they say it is within acceptable limits. I've just been looking at these things:
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would be an easy job to put one into the incoming main in the cellar, but would it make any worthwhile difference. Rate of flow is more important to me than pressure, especially when more than one tap is open. I've never quite got my head around the difference between rate of flow and pressure, but I don't see how one of these things could actually suck more water out of the incoming supply in order to increase the rate of flow.
It is illegal to pump water out of the mains without a permit (which likely won't be given).
There are three ways to improve the mains water to your home. None cheap all with drawbacks.
1) Replace the existing mains from the road with 25mm MPDE this will not increase the standing pressure but will increase the flow rate.
2) Fit accumulators and a non-return valve. This only help if the pressure is good during most/some of the day and not at other times when
3) Apart from the sink put all water into a storage cistern as low as possible and then fit a quality negative head pump to supply all the rest of the house.
It's illegal to pump water out of the mains supply, this is so dirty water does not get sucked in the leaking pipes.
You can however, pump water from a tank, so, if you have a tank in the loft, you can stick a pump on the outlet from this (and the hot water cylinder, if you have one)
Pressure is the force the water is trying to get out of the pipe, so with everything off, the pipes and taps are holding back 1 bar of pressure, 1 bar is like having a tank of water 10 meters high, so if you had a 15mm pipe connected to a tank of water 10 meters in the air, the pressure would be about 1 bar, however, if you had 22mm pipe connected, the pressure will be the same, but the flow will be greater. 10mm pipe will still be 1 bar, but the flow will be far less.
Have you made sure all you stopcocks are fully open? If you have any of the silver service valves
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or
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will reduce the flow quite a lot, as the hole in the moving ball is only about 10mm Your main stopcock may also be restricting the flow.
If it is causing you a big problem, I would do the following...
time how long it takes to fill a bucket from your kitchen tap, and also your outside tap (if you have one)
Turn off the water at the stopcock Disconnect the pipe to the rest of the house connect a piece of pipe (plastic would be best here) do the test again here, if there is no significant improvement, it may be the stopcock
If this is the case, then turn the water off in the road remove the stop c*ck and repeat the test - if again there is no significant improvement, then you are stuffed!
I would suggest in line with the other answers that the problem lies more in the piping than the pressure. If the pipes are small and have restrictions then higher pressure will overcome that but actually 1 bar pressure with adequate piping is quite reasonable. The reason for saying that is the flow from my hot water taps is perfectly acceptable with all running despite having a head of less than 5 metres - ie 0.5 bar - but I recognised I had a potential problem when I replumbed and used 22mm pipe with long bends and full bore isolators, and a 28mm feed to the hw tank.
The thing of course id that the pressure being measured by the water board is the static pressure - ie without any water flowing !
Essentially a pump which with a non-return valve and a pressure switch so that it switches on when the pressure in the outlet pipe fails below a certain amount (in theory when water is been drawn off). There is also a small expansion vessel to prevent 'hunting'.
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