Combi's and water pressure

[Andrew Gabriel]

Just seen on the news that Thames Water is going to reduce the water pressure in London until they can find the money to replace the leaking water mains. Potential combi owners (and current combi owners) might want to bear this in mind.

One of the London boroughs has had to spend £1M so far on providing booster pumps so water will reach the tops of their taller buildings, and as the pressure drops spread, they are expecting to spend the same again. They have complained to OFFWAT that Thames Water is allowed to drop the pressure but not responsible for picking up the bill. Some taller houses will apparently also need booster pumps.

[James Hart]

It almost sounds like one of those april fools stories that get put out, but I fear it isn't. Problem: Water mains are leaking, too much is leaking away. Solution: Stop putting as much water through them.

[Lee]

Well, we have very high water pressure here, but only average flow rates. Most of the additional pressure would appear to be air, going by the bubbles and noise. I'd be happy for them to reduce the pressure*, if it reduced the aeration and noise, as long as it didn't reduce flow rates too much.

*We have a 28kw combi, but we have to throttle it back to around 10l/min because otherwise the aeration causes it to be far too noisy.

Lee