mains flow rate in york

[Fred]

Had the plumbers round to quote for a combi system. The British Gas man takes out his flow rato-meter and gives me about 10l/min flow rate for the mains. What? The local plummer didn't even check for the flow rate, said it was no problem, but how can he know? The BG man said something about maybe finding the stop tap and opening it to the full might help; also that I might do something to the mains connection to increase the flow. Friends who live close by have a collossal mains pressure in York, why does ours suck?

Shouldn't there be an experimental shower room somewhere where you can check out showers with 3l/min (my current setup - old tank system),

10l/min and maybe 15 or 20l/min? It's hard to tell in theory whether 8l/min is good enough for me.

Cheers,

Fred

[no]

Where I used to live there was a big problem with the water pressure, the water people fitted a pressure bypass system that reduced the water pressure, especially during low demand times like overnight or in winter. When I used to get up for and try to have a shower before 6 AM the shower was unuseable. It took a lot of questioning of the water guy they sent out before he admitted that this pressure bypass was what they had done. The problem came worse when the clocks changed (they did not have automatic time adjustment) cos the pressure stayed useless until 7 AM when everyone else was up and about and using water.

The reason for doing this was blamed on the crumbling pipe network in the area, If they run it at a decent pressure they get more leaks!!! After a few complaints and water flow checks the guy adjusted the pressure up a bit for a while. So if you are in an area with older, non plastic, water main this might be the cause.

[Christian McArdle]

Ouch. That is really bad. I would recommend not installing any mains pressure hot water system with only 10lpm flow rate. You should be using a tank based system, unless the mains water supply is upgradeable. Note that your tank based solution is clearly malfunctioning. With the assistance of a pump, mine was capable of around 40lpm for hot water alone.

It is very easy to check flow rate yourself. At the main kitchen tap, fill a bucket. Then divide the capacity of the bucket (in litres) by the time taken (in seconds). This works, provided that all taps and stopcocks are wide open and the kitchen tap has a good unblocked pipe to the rising main and it isn't a fancy expensive tap with 2mm water paths.

Christian.