Hi All
Just reading the instructions for a bog standard thermostatic shower, to be installed over a bath, but at the other end to the taps.
They suggest that its better to take pipes directly to the shower from the hot & cold tanks, rather than tee into the pipes that already supply the H & C bathroom taps.
What's the benefit in that? A pipe is a pipe? Can't see the logic.
Haven't you ever experienced variations in pressure and temperature when using this kind of shower when someone draws water elsewhere in the house?
Connecting to an exclusive outlet in each tank largely eliminates this.
The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:
It avoids problem with pressure drops when someone else turns on a tap, or a washing machine, or flushes the loo.
Extreme example, but over the weekend we were camped on a temporary campsite and the very long waterpipe that ran round the field was utterly useless at the far end for some of the day as everyone else upstream was using it. Doesn't have to be upstream, either.
Yup. For the same sort of reason, it's recommended that the feed for a combi boiler is a dedicated one, and is taken immediately after the main stop c*ck.
David
It would be sound advice for a non-thermostatic mixer - you don't want someone to be scalded when the adjacent loo is flushed or given a cold shower when someone else runs a hot tap. A thermostatic mixer should handle this situation correctly, but the mixer will still function better with separate feeds. Of course it also depends on the pipework layout within the particular house.
On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:54:43 GMT someone who may be "The Medway Handyman" wrote this:-
Use a search engine to find out the answers to this frequently asked question.
Here is a clue though. Imagine what happens when someone flushes a toilet and that reduces the cold water pressure at the shower, without reducing the hot pressure.
Do you trust your "bog standard thermostatic shower" to react quickly enough to these changed circumstances? Do the instructions say how quickly it reacts to such changes? Is it worth taking the risk when the cold water tank is likely to be nearby? The hot water is less of a problem, but should be taken as close to the cylinder as possible, ideally via a separate connection.
The thermostat will 'handle' the situation, but only insofar as it can - it will prevent the showerer from being scalded or frozen when somebody uses an adjacent tap, but if the cold or hot supply to the valve is significantly compromised then it will have to match the flow rate of other supply accordingly, which may mean the flow stops almost completely rather than have it produce scalding or cold water.
We have two such thermostatic showers at home, neither of which unfortunately have dedicated feeds. If someone turns one on while the other is in use, there's a momentary but obvious blip in the water temperature before it settles down (and the flow rate is obviously lower).
David
If you can figure this out, maybe you should not be doing such things.
'Ding!' Sorry, its all those years of being involved in high pressure washers. It's flow rate I should be thinking of.
Blonde moment - I'll get my coat..................................
I'm goin to plumb it in with plastic pushfit. Now where did I put that blunt hacksaw.........................
Please continue - you will be out of business soon.
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