Showerforce B&Q pumps

[nonymouse]

Any good - noisy??? Or alternatively any recommendations for pumps for a fairly bog standard mixer shower??? Doesn't need to be overly powerful

[Jason]

I have not long long ago replaced a newteam (old) showerpump with the £119 B&Q one it says it not prewired but it was. Not overly noisy, but mine it is about 25 foot away from the shower and tucked in a cupboard with the emersion tank with a couple of walls in the way but nobody stopping in that room has ever complained of it being noisy. As for the power, works the same as the old one which was very expensive at the time and is satisfactory for one shower. Hope this helps and as for how long it will last, only time will tell.

[Christian McArdle]

I had one in my last house. Single impellor. Cheap and cheerful. A bit noisy, but not unacceptably so. Never went wrong in the year or two before I sold the house. Managed the bath taps fine, too, filling the bath in about 1 minute.

Obviously, Stuart Turner will supply you with a higher quality product, if you're looking for good stuff.

Christian.

[nonymouse]

Thanks for your help. Looking at an Easiboost B&Q Showerforce but this is twin impellor - I only need to boost the hot, not the cold so this might be more than I need. Ideally, I would like to situate this in the boiler cupboard but the plumber says no. He suggests putting under the bath instead because of the additional pipework involved in plumbing to the cupboard.

[Christian McArdle]

Yes, you would need a single impellor.

Why?

There is no additional plumbing if you run it pumped to the entire house. Remember that pumps prefer to push than pull, so as close to the outlet of the cylinder as possible is best.

Christian.

[nonymouse]

There is no additional plumbing if you run it pumped to the entire house.

Cheers - but don't really want the pump turning on every time we turn a tap! Do you have any good suggestions on quiet single impellor pumps? I read a lot of people talking of Stuart Turner and have found Techflow in an Internet search for quiet pumps but know nothing about them myself as I'm not a plumber!

[Pete C]

Hi,

It should be OK to connect it so both impellers are boosting the hot supply, a call the the makers helpline will confirm this.

cheers, Pete.

[nonymouse]

Thanks Pete.

Twin impellers as I understand are not supposed to be connected to mains pressure cold water. The only way I can see around this is to install another header tank (or T off the existing tank) with lots of additional plumbing. This seems like an awful lot of hassle or am I missing something as usual??

[Pete C]

Hiya,

I meant connecting both impellers to the hot side only, in parallel:

-----[i1]----¬ hot from tank -> | pump | hot to shower ->

------| pump |------- | pump | -----[i2]-----

(copy and paste into notepad if it appears jumbled)

Depends if a twin impeller is much cheaper than a single of course, and if the makers say it's OK.

cheers, Pete.

[John Stumbles]

The Salamander pumps that Screwfix do are very nice for the same sort of price as the tat the sheds do. I don't know if they do a single impeller, though. Conventionally one takes a second feed from the CW storage tank for the shower's cold feed and pumps that, too, though mains + pumped hot should be OK providing the valve is happy with it (bar mixer valves seem to be OK).

[Ian_m]

They don't work too well under the bath, thats why you won't see too much about them being used under the bath. My old house had one (B&Q jobby by previous owner), waste of time as made a lot of noise for bugger all increase in pressure, probably being due to the long run of 22m pipe from the tank not supplying enough flow. Was connected to the 22mm pipes supplying the bath then 15mm pipe to shower head, the shower head had been changed to one with not too many holes, probably to keep the pressure up as when I changed it to what I thought was better, more holes, the pressure was less (flow more) and the pump tended to cavitate, implying not enough flow in, unless you turned the shower valve down a bit. Also affected if someone flushed the loo or ran the bath room tap.

Anyway replaced it with a proper pump in airing cupboard supplied direct from hot and cold tanks via 22mm pipe (use plastic Hep2O push fit, very easy) and back up into loft in 15mm to shower in bath room. A monster skin ripping floor flooding shower if everything was turned up full !!!! I used a

12V Watermill pump latest house used a Techflow pump, which needed to be bigger to supply two showers. put in airing cupboard, but this time the shower plumbling was already in the house, I just "inserted" a pump.

In summary do it properly, proper plumbing back to tank, proper pump, proper valve rather than arse around with existing usually inadequate setup.