A complete newbie at plumbing so I'm after some general advice on shower pumps.
I have a gravity fed shower with a pipe run of around 40' from the tank. There's approximately 2' in height difference (roughly measured) from the top of the shower head to the bottom of the water tank. As you can probably tell, the shower isn't exactly useful give the lack of pressure and I'm considering a pump would be a good solution.
The sort of thing/price I'm considering is
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I have... Will this type of pump be suitable? Any other recommendations? Where is the pump placed? Near tank or near shower? What would be the required/recommended ventilation/accessibility requirements of the pump?
determines how hard the pump pushes the water towards the shower, it is measured in the number of feet that the pump can push water skywards against the force of gravity (1 bar does not equal 1 foot - it's more like 20 or 30 feet per bar).
A 3 (or 4) bar pump will pummel your skin which is good for blood circulation. Nice wakeup call in the morning to have your back massaged :)
Also, the screwfix prices ain't good. I believe that Wickes are cheaper.
See above. General answer is "yes".
Whatever you choose, make sure you get a pump with twin propellors. That means a hot and a cold feed in, and a hot and a cold feed out (4 pipes). You can get cheap and nasty pumps which might not have dual propellors - forget them.
See above.
Somewhere between. Must be below tank. You must NOT connect the incoming cold to the pump direct to rising main - it is fed from the header tank. Typically the pump is at about shower head height.
Airing cupboard is typically a good solution. Usually high up. But can be in the bathroom behind a panel. The important thing to consider is that the pump has a decent gravity feed of both hot and cold water.
Getting to it for maintenance is the main concern. Be careful to not cover it with clothing or anything - they get a bit hot in use.
Also, consider the duty cycle. At the cheaper end of the scale the pumps are designed to cope with occasional use of no more than 20 minutes. Higher priced pumps can cope with 100% on. If you have a family that might dive in for a shower one after the other a low duty cycle might not be a good idea. Pumps have automatic cutouts, so if it hits the duty cycle limit it might just pop out in mid-shower.
One thing I would add here. Adding an electrical device to a water feed where people could be electrocuted is an obvious concern. This might even be classed as part P specific, meaning you would need the local authority to issue a certificate for the installation (someone else can confirm that - I know all about part P but even experts disagree on the actual implementation). This could get expensive rapidly.
Don't forget that the more water your pump throws out, the quicker your HW cylinder will run out. Unless my maths is wrong (it's been said before), if you have stored HW at 65C and CW at 10C (is that a little warm?), and you mix them equally (results in 37.5C shower), then a 15 lpm pump will only provide about 13 mins of showering pleasure (assuming a 100l HW cylinder). Of course, your boiler will be trying to heat up the water during this time, so the length of showering time will be longer.
That's very true. However if you've got good pressure in the shower then it stands to reason that your shower will take less time. I would have thought 13 minutes in a high pressure shower would've blasted your skin clean ;)
Obviously there might be a possible issue if multiple people follow one another into the shower. Sharing a shower might be an option..... ;)
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