Lack of shower power

[Keith Dunbar]

The shower in my new home is a bit weak. Descaling the shower head helped, but only a little. I suspect there is just not enough of a head of water - the bathroom is only 7 ft 6 high and the cold water tank is on the loft floor. What would be the best/cheapest remedy?

Do I fit a power shower, or do I raise the cold water tank?

As far as a power shower is concerned, I would only want it to make the shower flow acceptable - so I would be happy to buy the least powerful unit and set it to its minimum setting just to do the job - from a conservation point of view I wouldn't want to start using a lot more water for showers. Raising the tank sounds more complicated but I guess may not be, and may be a cheaper option - how much of a head would be needed to get a decent shower flow? I'm also concerned about how I would adequately insulate a tank situated a number of feet above the loft floor, and also about how substantial a stand would be needed, recognising that water is b****y heavy.

Keith

[mark.hannah]

Is it for an electric shower? Would it be possible to take a feed from the rising main to supply the shower with mains pressure cold water?

Mark.

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 09:26:10 GMT someone who may be "Keith Dunbar" wrote this:-

I assume you have a gravity shower with the cold taken directly from the storage tank. What size are the pipes feeding the shower and how torturous route do they take?

Often mutually exclusive. Also you need to define what you will consider best, as this varies from person to person.

You might also like to consider a venturi shower.

[John Rumm]

Depends on how much better you want it to be. I would guess the former (or a venturi shower) unless you are looking for only a very small improvement.

Every 30' of head gives you 1 bar of pressure. Many people find that a shower will feel rather weak with anything less than 1 bar.

Have a look here for some options:

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can get a surprisingly effective high flow shower with a small head if you are careful with pipework sizing, design and the choice of shower. You need to reduce the flow resistance to a minimum. Unfortunately many bath type shower mixers are poor in this way - but things like Aqualisa temperature controlled 22m fed ones can work very well. However, I realise due to the position of the storage tank this may simply be impracticable. So you have the choice of raising the header tank or fitting a pump.

If you use the same size timber as the existing joists, you won't go far wrong. Screw the vertical timbers on one side to a wall if possible. Triangulate the sides of the frame too.

[zikkimalambo]

I know this is uk.d-i-y, but what Dave proposes sounds like hard work.

Have a look at the Aqualisa Quartz pumped showers. They are not cheap at around =A3600, but are very easy to fit especially in a situation such as this (retrofit rather than new build).

There is a small box to which the 22mm connections are made, and then a single pipe goes down to the control position. Difficult to explain in a few words, but have a look at their web site. In it's standard rather than boost mode, I think it gives a good compromise between effectiveness and eco-friendlyness. I say the single pipe goes down, as the gubbins can be located in the loft (depending of size/head of tank etc, you'd need to check) they can also be located under the bath or in an adjacent airing cupboard, etc, etc.