Boiler suitable for fitting in loft

[IMM]

It does. Water companies are to charge extra if you have a power shower pump, of which most do not get up to 17-18 litres/min. 14 litres min of hot will be about 17-18 with cold added.

[Andy Hall]

With piddly little electric showers doing around 5lpm, 7lpm does not equate to a decent shower.

.andy

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[Andy Hall]

Then forget about any form of mains pressure system unless you are prepared to run pipes internally and probably have a new service pipe run in from the road. The results would be disappointing.

.andy

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[Christian McArdle]

Except that the 14lpm is at 40C, so you won't be adding any cold (or you'll be adding cold to a lower flow rate at higher temperature).

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

Not good. The only hope is that the behaviour was caused by a partially open stopcock or similar restriction.

You can still put a mains pressure system in if you genuinely intend to upgrade your supply at some point, but until then, it would be a downgrade from a gravity based system. If you did decide to install one, consider feeding the heatbank from the cold water cistern. This could then be connected to mains instead when the supply pipe was upgraded. If you have no intention of upgrading the water supply, then a standard gravity system will be much cheaper.

Christian.

[IMM]

7 l/m with an electric shower is a powerful shower. In the US, in some areas they are considering limiting showers to 7-8 l/min. Some water companies went around all the house and fitted flow restrictors in the hose outlets. Most never noticed ant difference. People like the pressure on their skin, the flow doesn't mean that much.

[MBQ]

[IMM]

Seriously being considered if not on a meter.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Never heard of that one, but the EU has been considering limiting the max flowrate of showers -- there are some around now which can aparently easily consume more water than a bath. Not heard anything on this for a while though.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And just how are they going to know?

[Slartibartfast]

I seem to remember that, before my kitchen was fitted, the flow rate was better (an extra stop-c*ck was added because the old one had seized and was also inaccessible). It didn't seem a problem at the time. (The difference wasn't great but was noticable without measuring.)

I don't know how to go about upgrading my water supply. From all I've read I like the idea of using a Heat Bank with mains pressure. However I telephoned Severn-Trent and they said the minimum requirement for flow rate is 9 litres/min and they described 12 l/min as "good". Therefore they said they could not help me.

I guess changing the supply would be expensive, yes? There is a stop-c*ck under the pavement outside my house, if that makes any difference. The house is also close to the road (4-5m).

My other option is to use a quick recovery vented cylinder and pumps on both showers. I don't think I could live with a gravity-fed shower :-(

M.

[Andy Hall]

It's more than that - it's a miracle.

The shower gestapo?

Two generalisations which are pretty meaningless.

.andy

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[Andy Hall]

Detector vans.

.andy

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[Christian McArdle]

The main cost is digging a deep trench from the house to the street stopcock. If it just goes under a simple turfed front garden, this won't be too bad. The cost of some 25mm MDPE, a new internal stopcock and some adapters to your existing pipework is negligible in comparison. However, do have your static pressure tested first. This will give some basic indication that the street supply will be reasonable enough to be worth doing. Test during peak shower hours, when the pressure will be lowest.

Indeed. Again, you could use a gravity pumped heat bank and change over to mains later. Again, a straight gravity cylinder would be cheaper, but not have the upgrade path.

The other thing you could do is replace your 2 internal stopcocks with a new

22mm lever ball valve. The old stopcock might be jammed partially open.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

You've been required to inform them for ages. I doubt more than a few people in the entire country have done so, though.

Christian.

[RichardS]

Domestic automated irrigation systems also spring to mind.

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Andy Hall]

9lpm at the kitchen tap is the legal minimum. This allows the water suppliers to get away with doing very little.

It could well be. I looked into this a while ago and the cost was approaching £5k for about a 45m run from the road to the required position in the house. Then there was the cost of repaving the drive on top of that.

If you go this route, you would be better off using a Stuart Turner 3 or 4 bar brass shower pump. If everything is connected via 22mm pipework, it will comfortably deliver a good quality shower to two showers simultaneously, or indeed fill the baths quickly as well. These are not cheap - expect to pay around £300-400, but they are excellent quality and you can buy all parts as spares. The cheap shed ones are disposable items.

.andy

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

Instead of an aerial they'll have a twitching stick on the roof?

[Andy Hall]

It would be a divine job though.... dowse you not think?

.andy

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[IMM]

You obviously don't know.