Essex flange installation

[mwebst16]

Hello,

I am DIY'ing my bathroom and have decided to install a shower pump. I have read plenty of guides on here and have a very good idea of what I need to do. But a couple of questions remain:

When fitting my Essex flange the advise is to position the pipe entering the hot water cylinder away from any immersion heaters to prevent the extraction of aerated water (which gathers on the immersion heater). Also it is suggested to locate 60mm below the cylinder seam. However my airing cupboard is very tight so I can only really fit the flange on the front face of the cylinder as cutting a hole on the sides is impossible. The inserted pipe would invariably point towards this heating element.

I am going to site the pump on the floor in the space on the right of the cylinder.

Comments/suggestions? I could site the essex flange lower on the cylinder? Or what about putting a bend on the inserted pipe so it picks up away from the heating element?

Question 2: What are the pros and cons of use plastic v copper pipe to run from the cold water storage tank in the loft to the new shower pump?

thanks in advance!

Untitled

• mwebst16
• 6 Aug 2009
• 1

 

[gasmick2]

HI why dont you fix a surrey flange?? that will stop all your problems, it has a built in dip pipe and is the proper thing to use for power shower instalations
I prefer to use copper for any istalation but i am old school and never been involved with a lot of plastic instalations as over the last few years i have stuck to just boiler repairs etc

mick

 

[Legion]

Agree with gasmick, use a york/warix whatever they are called flange that fits to top of cylinder, the difference between them is wether your cylinder is male/female at top connection, can`t remember which is which. Don`t go cutting cylinder, you will also have to reconfigure your hot feed/vent after fitting flange, make sure it runs up slightly to vent/hot feed. Use plastic if it suits you, it looks bad to to the eye in my opinion and I use it in lofts/out of sight but up to you. Make sure your header tank connection is 25mm below the cylinder feed connection to prevent scalding. Check you buy right pump, if there is little distance from your header tank to pump you may need a negative head pump.

 

[mwebst16]

Legion, Gasmick,

Cheers the replies. 25mm lower position noted, I have a crib sheet where I'd got a load of tips like that already written down but defo won't forget now.

I was considering a top take off but I have read that the shower pump needs a dedicated hot feed and what maybe I haven't made clear is that the top of the cylinder at present supplies the hot water to the bathroom shower and taps and kitchen tap. There is a vent pipe going into the loft (and I assume into cws tank)

What I read was that the dedicated feed is intended to prevent temperature variations if hot taps are used in kitchen/bathroom at same time as pump. Although at my parents place they had a whole new bathroom done recently by a proper outfit and the plumber there appears to have used a Surrey/Warix flange at the top and the feed to the shower pump is NOT a dedicated feed but teed off.

Provisionally I intended on copper pipe as have done some other minor plumbing work before and found it easy to work with (applying bends, cutting etc).

I had earmarked the RSP75 shower pump by Salamander.

 

[Legion]

There should be one sloping pipe from your cylinder at a 90 degree angle (ish) joining a vent up toward loft then down toward hot water outlets. this sloping pipe fits into your new flange at top of cylinder. the flange is shaped like an `L` the bottom of the `L` is the first take off to your pump, top of `L` is to vent/hot water feeds there should not be any other connections before this.

 

[mwebst16]

Legion,

That all makes complete sense. Yes, sadly cropped at the top of the photo I attached but you are right. There is currently a horizontal pipe with the vent off to the loft and the outlet down towards the hot water outlets.

I just need to re-visit the flange type pages to suss out which one I need. When I'd looked at the diagrams I thought the top of the 'L' was just taking out air, not a combination of hot water and air.

Found the diagram (Surrey flange)

Will go for a 22mm one.

This is going to be so much easier than the Essex flange job, no need to cut into cylinder and no need to drain out hot water and no dropping Essex flange parts inside cylinder!

With pump at base of airing cupboard the head is about 2.5 m to bottom of cws tank in loft.

 

[Razor900]

If you use a salamander s-flange and ring their tech help line they usually give you an extra years guarantee