I've just had a triton shower engineer in to look at my shower which was not producing any hot water. He told me the mains water pressure was too low for the shower to work and I'd need to change the shower to a pumped shower and change the plumbing to take the feed from the tank rather than the mains. Would anyone know if this is my inly solution?
J
I looked into improving my water pressure a few years ago.
Rolls Royce solution: you could consider upgrading the water main all the way back to the "service pipe" in the street. That's likely to be expensive, but it will improve the water pressure around the house, and would be great if you were considering installing a mains-pressure hot-water system. You'd need a quote from your water provider for this.
Otherise I was told I could get something called an accumulator. I never really did get to the bottom of this. Apparently it is a store of incoming water which is kept in a pressurised vessel of some kind, in other words a kind of reservior of pressure which will provide a certain amount of water at high pressure until it gets exhausted I think. It would have sat in my cellar where the water main comes in. Not sure what that would cost - probably a bit more than a new shower and some replumbing, but again it would provide a solution throughout the house. I have this link saved if it's any help:
On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:04:29 -0800 someone who may be JonG wrote this:-
Not enough information.
What is the mains pressure at the shower?
Is this high enough to power a venturi shower?
How high a head could you obtain for a gravity only shower?
If a gravity only shower is not possible/acceptable could a pumped shower be fed from the existing cylinder?
How many litres is the cylinder? How is it heated? How is this heating controlled? How quickly does it recover?
I don't know much about anything, but:
(a) Shouldn't you ask your water company about this? Surely most electric showers assume a basic water pressure which is reasonable? In which case it would seem that your water pressure - as supplied by the water company - is not at present reasonable.
or (b) Maybe the shower you have fitted is simply too powerful: you need to downgrade the power, so that it fits the pressure you have (assuming that this is indeed "reasonable" as in (a)).
I make this comment because I keep thinking about upgrading our shower so that we get a stronger spray. What we have is plenty hot enough, but the pressure is not as good as I get at the gym. To get *that* I'd need to upgrade the shower to a higher wattage, but that in turn will need greater mains pressure.
john
Probably a very ignorant question, but doesn't the water usually come from a tank in the attic? I thought that was a speciality of the UK and Ireland.
Short answer: sometimes, sometimes not!
Thanks for all the above. I also thought that showers would be fed from the tank as well. The problem I'm having isn't helped by the fact that I am at the bank of a development that slopes up towards the back, and the shower is on a
3rd floor. I'd say I'm just going to have to get an expert in to have a look and see what can be done.Thanks J
Yeh - I should have made it clear that I'm speaking of a Mira electric shower which is fed from the cold supply only.
John
hire a pressure gauge and plumb to the mains. If it shows a bar or more, pressure is not the problem..flow rate is.
Which is the (simple?) matter o upgrading pipe bores.
What, this group not expert enough for you? The Triton engineer not expert enough? Nobody has mentioned the Triton guide. Might save you some dosh.
Jim A
On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:37:24 -0800 someone who may be JonG wrote this:-
It depends on the type of shower. Since you reported that the mains pressure is too low that implies it is an instant electric shower, fed from the mains.
Other types of shower are fed from the cold water storage tank.
In my experience of mains fed, heat it as you go, showers the failure mode when the water flow is inadequate is quite distinctive and easy to spot. The shower will have one or maybe two heating elements and will only be able to turn them fully on or fully off. The temperature control is achieved primarily by altering the amount of water flowing over the elements and only when the shower detects and over temperature condition does it turn off the element(s). Typically this results in an pattern of hot and cold water, often accompanied by a kettling sound. Depending on the complexity of the shower it may turn the elements off completely or it may turn one of the two or three off to give an attempt at finer control. For the shower to "not produce any hot water" the flow would need ot be really quite abnormally low - so low you'd be comenting on the flow from the taps etc.
So, it's easy enough to measure, how much water comes out of the shower head in 1 minute?
If the shower does heat the water at all what happens if you flush the toilet while its running? In fact what is the flow rate from the shower if you flush the toilet?
And just for completeness what is the flow rate from the kitchen
*cold* tap?.
That of which you speak is a booster pump
The reservior holds say 25 litres of water at 2 - 3 bar pressure, so is all ready to go when you turn on a tap/shower/whatever. As soon as the flow starts/pressure drops the pump kicks in to maintain the flow.
I've installed these to run pressure washers that need 24 litres a minute and they work very well indeed.
In message , Martin Pentreath writes
difference, previously I got at best 12 litres a minute hot through the combi, noticeably less between 7 and 8 in the morning, and substantially less if a toilet was flushed. Now I reckon, but not measured yet, it's giving twice that flow on the hot and the cold can be turned on full speed simultaneously with almost no change to the hot flow.
I had the 15m of pipe from the street main replaced with 32mm dia and split that internally at 28mm into three separate feeds for hot, and for cold upstairs and for downstairs.
The cost of replacing the pipe was approx. £900 inc. VAT in N.Hants..
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