Electric shower needs more pressure

Have fitted an electric shower, but mains water pressure is too low here an the shower keeps cutting out with a low pressure warning. It's supposed to work with a minimum of 1 bar, but obviously must be borderline. What's the solution ? Have looked at shower pumps, but there is a large variety of types and prices. Don't want to pay much over £100 for one and don't really wan to change the shower unit either. Any advice on what to get, please ?

Vic

Reply to
Vic
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There may be a pressure reducing outside somewhere that needs adjusting. I have one in my driveway.

Is the the flow from your cold water taps low? If so, the cold water mains pipe may have corroded/scaled up.

Is the stop tap turned fully on?

Reply to
harry

This property is on the top of a hill and the pressure here is always low. All nearby houses are the same. Pipes are all plastic, so no corrosion and there is no scaling. This is just the way it is. Previous shower unit could just aout cope, but was always borderline.

Reply to
Vic

Ah well/ A different shower. Or header tank and pump(s).

Reply to
harry

Maybe you and your neighbours ought to have a word in the ear of the water company suggesting they fix it.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

If you can get a shower head with less open area - perhaps one meant for a

7kW unit (if your unit is higher) that might do it. I don't like high flow and manage most of the year on or close to minimal flow (having to use High ATM), so I have a fine spray head and have blocked up about a third of the holes. One tip, if you can get it to work, is don't lower the head below the unit as this can cause the pressure switch to go off and it takes more pressure than you have to reset it. I have, sometimes, got it working again by partly obstructing the outlet with my hand, but this means playing around with f'ingcold water!
Reply to
PeterC

We had a problem some years ago with dramatically low water pressure due to demand varying through the day in the peak holiday season, and the shower temperature suddenly increasing to potentially scalding hot over less than a minute as the pressure fell away. The man from SWW came to check it and said there was a legal minimum pressure they had to meet, ISTR 2 bar. Get yourself a pressure gauge, something like one these

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fits on an outside tap, only a tenner, and then contact your water company with the evidence.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

The water company might do a test for free. Yorkshire Water do.

But their responsibilities usually stop at the stoptap in the street. I worked on a house that had 6 bar static presure and a flow rate of only

4l/min at the stoptap inside the house.
Reply to
ARW

I had a similar problem and ran a new feed from the header-tank to a small pump (1.5 bar) then to the shower. Works a treat

Reply to
Toiler

We're at the end of a long spur from the trunk main, and I think they replaced an old stopcock somewhere along it that was half shut and seized. Things did improve after that, but recently we've had the whole shower room re-done and gone over to a power shower supplied from the CW tank, a bit like you.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

Assuming you have stored HW and a header tank, you might as well get a dual impeller pump and boost the hot and cold water flow to the whole house and ditch the electric shower.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

There is a mains supply booster pump on the market. Bit pricey (300ukp-ish IIRC) but legit: it has some smarts in it that restrict the flow rate to . Can't remember offhand who makes it: don't think it was Grundfos - might have been Wilo. Prolly saw it in one of Roger Bisby's comics wot you get in PMs.

Reply to
John Stumbles

I think that's exactly what I'll do. I can feed the shower from the header tank easily enough and get a single impeller pump to boost the pressure. Thanks for the tip.

Reply to
Vic

Unfortunately this problem has been on-going for over 20 years, since the day mains water was installed in ours and the surrounding country properties. Basically, they say that we are so high up here that there's nothing they can do. Every few years, when new owners move in to one of the nearby houses, they go throught he same arguments again, and the answer is aways the same - basically: Tough, it would cost too much to make it better, so just put up with it". Strangely, that's exactly the same story we get from BT when we complain that they can't make broadband work any faster than

500k - in some houses not at all.

Some of the houses, which are even higher up than we are, have to have a separate pumped water storage tanks for their water supply and one is still on a private water supply pumped from a well.

Reply to
Vic

Good shout and I have tried all these tricks - spent many happy hours standing in a freezing cold stream of water trying to figure out the best way to make it work. Unfortunately other family members don't share my enthusiasm for experimentation. And even if I do manage to make it go hot, as soon as anyone within a 2 mile radius turns a tap on, it will cut out again.

The old shwer unit seemed to be a lot more tolerant of low water pressure - maybe the pressure switch was not working properly, or it never even had one - it was over 15 years old. Eventually it fell apart and spare parts were no longer available, so it had to be replaced.

Reply to
Vic

The problem is that the shower is too high up. Fit it lower down and shower laid on the floor.

Hope this helps.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

Isn't the point that you mustn't suck the mains, so the flow rate is irrelevant?

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

Our daughter had to have one of these fitted to her flat in London where the mains pressure was too low and the indirect supply also poor due to it being a top story flat. She couldn't use a conventional shower pump due to the latest design central heating/hot water boiler not liking being "sucked" by a pump.

As a start, following a Google search, See:

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It pressurises the whole system and, when the controller detects a pressure drop, the pump starts. This makes for interesting tap experiences for those not expecting the sudden increase in pressure :-)

Reply to
John Weston

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