cold showers

[telectrix]

recently fitted new instantaneous shower for m-i-l. shower will not heat up due to showing low water pressure indicator. have problems with our own shower exactly the same but not constantly. united utilities have been and checked the pressure in the street and said it's good. but that's at a point 20 feet lower than the shower. i don't believe them as even when i turn on a cold tap, the flow is poor compared to wherever else i've been. how can i tell what the pressure is, and is there a remedy, short of fitting a booster pump which would have to be triggered from the shower?

 

[Geordie Spark]

recently fitted new instantaneous shower for m-i-l. shower will not heat up due to showing low water pressure indicator. have problems with our own shower exactly the same but not constantly. united utilities have been and checked the pressure in the street and said it's good. but that's at a point 20 feet lower than the shower. i don't believe them as even when i turn on a cold tap, the flow is poor compared to wherever else i've been. how can i tell what the pressure is, and is there a remedy, short of fitting a booster pump which would have to be triggered from the shower?

Hi Tel.

Sorry if I'm stating the bleeding obvious here, but is the stopcock turned fully on?

I've found in the past that some folk only crack it open - insead of fully opening it - and find that it's fine for filling the kettle & wash basin etc.

Later on, when someone tries to open it all the way, it can feel like it's fully opened,but is infact stuck because of limescale etc.

Try fully closing it, then fully opening it - about 4 or 5 turns I think.

If you still want to test the pressure, a test gauge is available from Screwfix (Quote 82412) for about £12-00.

Hope this helps

 

[telectrix]

we don't have limescale round here and the fact that both houses have the same problem leads me to believe that the pressure is low. i will check with some neighbours , see if they're having same .

 

[ezzzekiel]

stopcock was my initial thought, only other consideration is the time of year with water pipes being colder than usual (although this is more to do with temp not low pressure)

 

[Geordie Spark]

recently fitted new instantaneous shower for m-i-l. shower will not heat up due to showing low water pressure indicator. have problems with our own shower exactly the same but not constantly. united utilities have been and checked the pressure in the street and said it's good. but that's at a point 20 feet lower than the shower. i don't believe them as even when i turn on a cold tap, the flow is poor compared to wherever else i've been. how can i tell what the pressure is, and is there a remedy, short of fitting a booster pump which would have to be triggered from the shower?

Furhter to my last post, I've been thinking about your comment about the utitlities company checking the pressure in the street & am wondering WHERE they took their reading. I suspect they measured the pressure at a convenient fire hydrant which would show that the pressure in the mains is fine - or not.

The problem you seem to have is that you may or not be getting enough water into the premises - that is AFTER the stopcock in the street for the property. This is a quarter turn cock (only a quarter of a turn between fully open & fully closed) & it's hiding about 2 feet down below a black iron or plastic cover in the pavement outside the property, & you'll need a water key to reach & turn it. It's not unknown for these things to not be turned on properly.

For you to play about with it is the exact same scenario as cutting the seal & pulling the main fuse - if you catch my drift .....

 

[pushrod]

Hi, assuming the shower is on mains - You might be able to increase pressure by running from a cold water tank high up in the loft, though obviously that might be a silly amount of work. You could do a crude measurement and comparison of flow rate by seeing how many seconds it takes to fill a bucket of water and converting to litres per min.

edit : forgot to say manufacturer might have info on min flow rates.

 

[Steve1412]

Is there any information what the pressure switch in the shower operates at?

 

[telectrix]

Is there any information what the pressure switch in the shower operates at?

no, thrown instrusctions away.

 

[telectrix]

united utilities got at the stop tap. to check pressure. feeding several properties, 2 ft. below pavement. water tank in attic is only 3 ft above shower, will time a 5 gallon drum filling. in a mo.

 

[Steve1412]

Could always frig the switch and see how it goes....I know its a bit extreme but you would expect the manufacturers to err on the side of caution when sizing the pressure switch!!!! either that or they stick a standard one relating to the country of origin who probably have far superior water supply systems than ours!!!!
Should also be an over temp switch in case water ever fails.

 

[pushrod]

If it is fed off a cold water tank then it is not to do with mains pressure. Raising the cold water tank a foot or two will increase the pressure at the shower.

edit other than that you will have to put a flow activated pump in.

 

[telectrix]

OK< just done a test with a 5 gallon can. rate is 5litres per min. that's off downstairs tap full on ,where the pressure is highest. thinking back, if my lady was in the shower , it would go cold if i turned a tap on or flushed the bog.

 

[tony mc]

Sounds like it a flow problem not pressure as 5 liters a min could be old lead pipe furred up.

Had same problem years ago at old house which was given 1 gallon a minute,

Had a new blue pipe installed went up to about 6 a minute.

 

[telectrix]

all copper in house. no limescale in the area. could it just be inadequate flow in the street, if it affects all houses round here

 

[telectrix]

If it is fed off a cold water tank then it is not to do with mains pressure. Raising the cold water tank a foot or two will increase the pressure at the shower.

edit other than that you will have to put a flow activated pump in.

it's fed off the rising main. and i think the united utilities guy said the pressure was 3 bar. but, everwhere i've lived even in hard water areas, when you turned the cold tap on, the water bounced off the bottom of the sink. here , it just flows about the same rate as a watering can. ( best analogy i can make )

 

[pushrod]

just checked mine and it is approx 14 litres per min, so 5 L/min does seems a bit piddly!

Wife wondered what on earth i was doing lol

 

[telectrix]

i could do better after 8 pints of good ale. so, if it's the pipe from the street to the house, who's liable to replace it?

 

[Geordie Spark]

it's fed off the rising main. and i think the united utilities guy said the pressure was 3 bar. but, everwhere i've lived even in hard water areas, when you turned the cold tap on, the water bounced off the bottom of the sink. here , it just flows about the same rate as a watering can. ( best analogy i can make )

3 bar is quite a good pressure. I think I would be happy with that.

I think the flow is the problem, Flow & pressure are 2 different things (think Volts & Amps) You can have water at a pressure high enough to be able to cut through steel plate, but it would take forever to fill a bath !!

To give you an idea about flow rates, A decent combi boiler will give you about 11 litres per minute - providing of course that you have at least that amount coming into the property in the first place.

We use a Weir Cup to measure this which is like a measuring jug with a slot running down the side. Like this: Flowmate II flow cup weir gauge plumbers' water flowmeter

 

[pushrod]

i could do better after 8 pints of good ale. so, if it's the pipe from the street to the house, who's liable to replace it?

If the fault is on your property then think it is down to you - i would check with neighbours to see if they have similar flow rate. If it is the whole street then think it is down to them.

 

[pushrod]

If it is just your house join the utilities insurance scheme before you mention it to them!

 

[Geordie Spark]

i could do better after 8 pints of good ale. so, if it's the pipe from the street to the house, who's liable to replace it?

It's your responsibilty from the stopcock out as far as the boundary of the property.

If you want to replace it, you need to dig a trench 700mm deep from the house to the boundary & lay 25mm Alkathene pipe in it on a bed of sand & covered with sand before back filling.

Use a 25mm to 22mm stopcock inside the house. If you want to be really pukka, use 22mm pipe - either copper or plastic for the rising main & branch off from that in 15mm to your taps etc.

The water company will connect from the boundary to their main in the street and some charge & some don't. A bit like the leccy suppliers & isolators !!

 

[tony mc]

Pipes down to you just I had to dig a trench to get the new plasic thing in.

 

[telectrix]

just knocked on 2 neighbours. they both say that the shower goes cold if they turn a tap on or flush the bog. might be that the shower i fitted at m-i-l's has a higher pressure required to activate the pressure switch.

 

[pushrod]

Sounds like whole street then . We had a problem a few months back where the washing maching was stopping mid cycle and showing some funny code - when we looked it up it was flow rate. Turned out there was a leak in a main a couple of streets away that they hadn't got round to fixing. Eventually it burst completely and they had to fix it and then the washer was ok again.

 

[telectrix]

going to check neighbours other side of road see if theirs is the same.

and before anyone says it, yes i do have neighbours that still speak to me, dunno why though. LOL>

 

[telectrix]

update.houses on both sides of the road all say they can't turn a tap on when the shower is in use as it goes cold. that tells me it's a supply problem. we can't all have knackered pipes.

 

[james29022004]

I had a similar problem at a job i was doing once-The chap who came out from thames water told me if they have leaks in a particular area they will turn the pressure down to minimise water loss rather than actually trying to find the leak! I would suggest you and all neighbours affected complain regularly and they might do something about it-you may find you all share a branch of pipe offf the main,if you speak to the man who comes out they are normally very helpfull and on the job i was doing he came and replaced a pipe in the road which sorted out the problem in the 3 flats.

 

[gpz900jim]

on the inlet of a shower is a mesh built into the pipe, take the shower off the wall and look up the inlet to see if the mesh is clean.

 

[telectrix]

what, on all the showers in the dtreet? they all got the same problem.