Ball a stop isolation valve - easy to swap?

[dishman]

I need something that can be retro fitted in. The tiling is all good so I don't want to rip anything out to fit it.

Ideally I'd like something that actually uses the already hot water within the tank, as it is just a waste of money heating all that water then using an electric shower.

The only thing that comes to mind is a mixer shower, with a shower pump.

I cannot find any with surface mounted pipes and controls at chest hight though.

The search continues.......

 

[Madrab]

@Burnerman 's idea is a good one if you want a pumped shower without remote pumping. As described, it looks like an electric shower but instead of a heater tank inside it, there's a pump in it's place and you feed it with hot and cold inlets. There are a few to choose from. Just use chrome pipe to feed if exposed. You still need at least 2L/min to activate the pump tho or a certain height of cold cistern above the shower head but it sounds like you may have that already.

 

[jimbo09990]

Having gone through 2 electric showers, and having similar issues, I fitted a power shower similar to these
http://www.screwfix.com/c/bathrooms-kitchens/showers/cat820272#category=cat820332&sort_by=price

The additional price has been more than covered in the lower electricity bill (Daughters that like to spend ages in the shower with it running!)

 

[FiremanT]

What kw is the shower?

Re the valves. If you are going to change the ball-o -fixes, make sure you use good quality ones. In hienlocations, I would use FB lever valves,space permitting.

 

[dishman]

@Burnerman @Madrab thanks for the suggestion.

Looking at all the manuals for those power showers, it seem as if you need to supplies at roughly the same pressure. It also seems, as they are for low pressure systems only that you need the cold to be fed from the storage tank. So two low pressure supplies.

My cold supply is at mains pressure. The hot supply is low pressure.

So unless there are power showers that can mix and match, I think a pump is the only solution.

@FiremanT I think it might be an 8kw shower. For the one under the bath I may indeed use a lever one. In the other areas the flat head screw turn ones from screwfix seem OK. I only tried one thus far as a test.

 

[Agile]

If you must have one of those electric showers with a pump then it is not very difficult in most cases to just run a pipe from the loft cold tank.

Certainly easier than the 22 mm pipework you would need to use to fit a shower pump.

Tony

 

[Madrab]

@dishman you have the same problem whether it's a power shower or a remote pumped mixer shower. Either pump needs to be fed from an adequate low pressure supply for both, neither can use mains pressure. As @Agile mentions too, a fair few of the remote pumps need 22mm pipe from the hot and cold supplies. A power shower can be fed via 15mm hot and cold feeds, with the cold being fed from the cistern in the loft and hot from the cylinder in chrome if you don't want to punch into the wall.

Use lever valves where at all possible, it avoids the pushing down pressure being applied to the ball when using a screwdriver to turn, which is why a lot of ball valves have a tendency to leak.

 

[dishman]

Is there no way to just increase the pressure of the hot water (via a pump) to the bath/shower or bathroom as a whole (the basin is fine really), or house as a whole if needs be, so that it is at the same pressure as the mains cold water?

Once the hot pressure is the same as the cold, a mixer shower should work fine, should it not?

 

[Madrab]

Install an un-vented hot water cylinder. Any other procedure would really only be a best endeavours exercise trying to balance the hot to the cold without pressure reducing valves to balance the supply and creating a system that's getting complicated and implementation ends up being a real ball ache with more things to go wrong. Either pump hot and cold or use mains hot and cold for the easiest approach.

Don't see why you don't like the power shower approach as it gives you exactly what you want unless it's purely down to the pipework needing installed, which is really only 2 chrome pipes dropped from the attic straight to the shower (assuming the attic is above the bathroom). Even if you just pump the hot it will still need a 22mm feed to supply enough flow to the pump.

I think you need to test you mains pressure and flow and see where you are starting from.

 

[dishman]

Thank you for your further input.

Indeed, having read the posts and doing a bit of research, I now understand that just adding a pump is not as simple solution as initially thought.

Questions about the power shower option.....

1) If the cold water feed tank is not that large, is there a risk of draining it quickly while in use? As it will feed the hot tank and the shower at the same time.

2)If the cold feed tank is plastic, how easy is it to add pipework to the tank. Assuming there is not inlet available, (have to replace tank?).

3) If the hot water tank is at bathroom hight, and the cold water feed comes from above (tanks in the loft). I assume the hot water feed can only come from below? Which makes things awkward.

 

[Madrab]

1) yes, depends on current size of cistern, measure current cistern volume - if rectangular then get width, length and height to water level in mm - then use an online calculator or multiply them together and then convert m3 to litres (1m3 = 1000L)
2) drain the cistern, get a hole saw, 19mm should be enough, cut hole, add 15mm tank connector about 50mm up from the base at the opposite side to the current connector.
3) hot water could be taken up and over to shower.

A power shower won't usually usually shift the same volume as a high capacity remote pump but you want a reasonable cistern size - hard to say without understanding usage but start out at 30Gal and go, up for a good long shower.

if any of this sounds too difficult then you really need someone in to install

 

[dishman]

Thank you for all the replies.

Out of interest, before I made the post I had a plumber round to deal with a few other remedial things. I asked him for a solution to the low pressure problem.

After just receiving the work itinerary I noticed he has put as a solution:

"fit a negative head single impeller shower/booster pump in airing cupboard to feed all hw outlets, to include fitting a 15mm pressure reducing valve on bath cold to balance pressures for a bath/shower mixer tap."

I assume the pump would fit on the hw outlet from the top of the hw tank.

Based on our conversation in the forum however, it seems that most on here feel this would not be an altogether successful solution. Is it something to completely avoid?

 

[Agile]

Seems a good sution to me.

Pressure reducing valve on cold may or may not be required depending on outlet pressure from pump.

Needs careful examination!

Tony

 

[Madrab]

I think you need to test you mains pressure and flow and see where you are starting from.

 

[dishman]

Will do.

But, based on what the plumber specified, is that different from the pump solution we discussed before? As that was deemed to be a more difficult solution. How is what the plumber specified different.

Sorry if going round in circles a bit....