I found I never really liked such a powerful shower. It didn't seem to be as simple as just reducing the flow knob, because then the water spray fell short. We tried another shower head, but probably bought one too similar to the original. Also, the pump was extremely noisy. But all of this was a long, long time ago. Looking back, I think I should have experimented more with different shower heads, but we had a lot less money back then and it probably wasn't a priority. On reflection, this seems like something quite specific to me so of limited relevance.
12 Litres Per Minute - OK for a combi?
- Thread starter gerbils
- Start date
I found I never really liked such a powerful shower. It didn't seem to be as simple as just reducing the flow knob, because then the water spray fell short. We tried another shower head, but probably bought one too similar to the original. Also, the pump was extremely noisy. But all of this was a long, long time ago. Looking back, I think I should have experimented more with different shower heads, but we had a lot less money back then and it probably wasn't a priority. On reflection, this seems like something quite specific to me so of limited relevance.
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Yeah we're not bothered about being blistered. I just want something that's better than light drizzle. 12L/min would be an absolute dream be it form a combi or one of these power showers I would be super satisfied.
I think less powerful shower pumps are available, though, and they might not be as noisy these days. Ours was a 3 bar pump just for one shower. I don't want to lead you down the wrong path. I've just googled this, for example, which is only half the power. Others on here might know if they are any good.
Stuart Turner Showermate Standard Twin Shower Pump
Need to give your water pressure a boost? With the Showermate standard twin shower pump, you can improve hot and cold water supplies to an individual shower or outlet with an existing flow rate of 1L/min or more.Suitable for a positive head installation with low-pressure gravity-fed systems, the...
www.toolstation.com
The power showers are a half way house between mains or a dedicated water pump. They use the cold water from the cold water storage cistern (CWSC) in the attic and the HW from the cylinder, therefore all you need to ensure is that there is a nice fat supply pipe feeding the CWSC and that the CWSC is a good size.
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Thanks these seem to be a good option and would mean we can stay unvented and just replace the cylinder. I’ve seen some bigger ones such as 180L that claim to reheat in 25 mins which is fine for us.
How much work is involved in a power shower install? I can’t see how they’d get the electricity to the unit without tearing all our tiles apart.
They will need a hot and cold supply. The power cable and pipework can be run via a conduit down from the ceiling (via attic).
Cylinder reheat times are often based on quite a high boiler flow temperature. Madrab mentioned above looking at a boiler setup which includes "priority hot water", which might have a beneficial impact in this respect. This is where the boiler uses a higher flow temperature for heating the cylinder than when it heats the radiators, so the cylinder reheats more quickly. One side effect, though, is that in many priority hot water setups the radiators will turn off whilst the cylinder is reheating, and that might not suit every household's situation. One more thing to think about!! @gerbils
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So we had the water guy here first thing this morning - I was not at home to talk to him unfortunately but he did leave us a note.
At our House
2 Bar Pressure
11 L/Min Flow
At our Boundary
2 Bar Pressure
30 L/Min Flow
He didn't do any dynamic readings unfortunately.
I guess it means we have the possibility of more flow at least. Not keen on digging up our driveway to find out though :/
The boundary reading will be a dynamic figure as the the mains will be feeding lots of other houses that are drawing water at the same time.
Your figures suggest that you have a restrictive supply pipe from the boundary to your incoming main, that is restricting flow. If you could get 2Bar @ 30L/Min dynamic then that would be a huge improvement. Worth considering but of course there is a cost attached. The new supply could be moled and it's a lot less digging.
Your figures suggest that you have a restrictive supply pipe from the boundary to your incoming main, that is restricting flow. If you could get 2Bar @ 30L/Min dynamic then that would be a huge improvement. Worth considering but of course there is a cost attached. The new supply could be moled and it's a lot less digging.
Is it worth switching our stop tap inside our house as a starting point, or is that unlikely to be of any benefit. The plumber who first came mentioned it was leaking ever so slightly but he 'patched it up'
If it's not in the best of condition then always a good idea to replace with a nice and shiny full bore lever valve but may not have an impact on the flow unless it isn't opening properly. What size of pipe comes off the valve, is it 22mm?
Where was he measuring the 2 bar pressure, if it was at the boundary, its pointless and far worse, if so, it means that the waterboard supply is a "constant" 2 bar as it also read 2 bar at 30LPM, both of these pressures are actualyy dynamic AT THE POINT where they were taken which was almost certainly at the boundary.
AS I stated previously, the only foolproof method is to fit a pressure gauge on the end of one of the cold taps and open it, the pressure it indicates (with no other tap open) is the static pressure and will also tell you the pressure at the boundary, if its only reading 2.0bar then you can forget about your combi, if its reading say 4 or 5 bar and 2bar with one or more taps giving you 11/12LPM then you have potential to increase the flow by doing some digging.
That's at the boundary and the property.
Property 2Bar / 11L Min
Boundary: 2Bar / 30L Min
The Plumber we had 3 weeks ago measured these at 1.8 / 12.2 on-site.
What is the distance from the boundary to the property? and if property and on-site are the same thing then your plumber probably did measure correctly, ie a flowrate of 12.2LPM at a pressure of 1.8bar. (dynamic)
10.5 Meters. Yes by on-site I mean in the house.
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