Does an accumulator take advantage of peak water pressure?

[amuiphoto]

I have an unvented cylinder. If my average water pressure is around 2.5 bar (static) but increases to over 3 bar at off peak times, will an accumulator store this at the peak pressure and deliver it (until it's all gone) to my shower in the morning?

 

[dcawkwell]

You will have a pressure reducing valve on the cold feed coming into
the property I think this is usually set to 3.5 bar it will have a label on.
So if the pressure
overnight is 3.5 bar the pressure in the house can increase to 3.5 bar.

 

[Dan Robinson]

As in the other thread.... It will help to even out the pressure during the day, but whether it is worth the hassle, time cost and use of space is another matter.

 

[amuiphoto]

PRV fitted is 3 bar at cylinder but during the morning actual incoming pressure is only 2 bar but peaks at over 3 during the night. Could I take advantage of that?

 

[sus]

In theory this is what they do. In reality the don't make much of a difference difference the money and space would be better spent on a tank and a pump.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Yes, but what I said earlier still counts.

 

[Dan Robinson]

In theory this is what they do. In reality the don't make much of a difference difference the money and space would be better spent on a tank and a pump.

A tank and pump take up far more space and create a lot of noise - plus you loose the potable water to the rest of the house.

Both solutions have their own merits, but if you are already unvented, and have half decent pressure and flow - then retuning to a tank and pump is a little backwards IMO.

 

[doitall]

Why would you loose the potable water Dan

 

[Dan Robinson]

Strictly speaking - once it is out of the main, it is not potable... But then - this argument has been had already

 

[doitall]

Strictly speaking - once it is out of the main, it is not potable... But then - this argument has been had already

But one should split the mains and use the accumulator for just the hot and balanced cold water.

Any case I would say if one had a shower early enough it would still be at off peak pressure.

 

[amuiphoto]

Any flow increase from the acc - ie is it additive to incoming main?

 

[big-all]

Any case I would say if one had a shower early enough it would still be at off peak pressure.

heellllooo doitall hows it going

surely if you have 3.5 bar in say a 100L tank under pressure you wont have any water entering until say 1/3 reduction in contents to reduce the pressure to below the input pressure of say 2.5 bar then the output will drop to the input pressure if i have miss understood this please correct me

 

[doitall]

Any flow increase from the acc - ie is it additive to incoming main?

yes there will be a flow increase in that the pressure will be higher until the Acc is depleted.

For example, if the mains pressure is 3.5bar off peak and the flow rate is 20 Ltrs/min, the accumulator will maintain that during off peak times until it's depleted, say Big_Alls 1/3rd volume, so if you have a 300 Ltr accumulator you get 100Ltrs at mains pressure, then it starts to drop off.

Morning BA I'm going well Thank you, off to Bognor in a minute to start the Christmas celebrations

 

[simond]

The answer to the OPs question is yes.

We have fitted a few hundred of these over the last 8 years and they work very well in the right situations.

There is a huge history of threads on this forum which you might find either interesting or annoying. I enjoyed my role in these as an accumulator evangelist; my enthusiam remains undimmed.

Some others have changed their stance since the original posts