Converting low pressure to high pressure domestic water

Geoff Pearson · 2013-12-14T16:30:06+00:00

I am rebuilding a bathroom next year and beginning to scope it out. These days finding taps that run on low pressure is quite difficult so I am thinking of replacing the hot water cylinder with one that would take high pressure and taking out the tank in the roof space. I presume it would still be heated indirectly from the boiler which is 1.5 storeys below. That would also solve a problem in the kitchen where the cold is on the mains and the hot is on low pressure. At one time mixer taps were available where this worked (eg KWC) - have they all gone now? In the bathroom if this is too difficult/expensive I might keep the Ideal Standard brassware - only 27 years old and working perfectly still. Any pitfalls here?

Dec 14, 2013 20 Replies

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You could with a Pressure reducing valve and Safety valve(s). It's living dangerously, though. Domestic hot water tanks are paper thin and neither valve is particularly reliable or precise. It's an unvented cylinder and you should have the G3 ticket to install them. It should also be a factory assembled kit.

An immersion heater would introduce a whole new range of potential excitement. Some unvented cylinders work like this (Tribune ISTR???) but the copper cylinders are/were more robust.

Stainless steel cylinders are now more common, given the price of copper.