How to measure mains water pressure?

[JDLDIY]

Hi there. As part of trying to decide which CH/water heating system to go for, it seems I should have a better idea of how good the water pressure coming into the house is. How would I go about measuring it?

Many thanks

 

[ChrisR]

Pressure - can you hold it off with your thumb or finger over a tap? How strong are you? We hope you can't and you're butch. Or you can buy a gauge for a tenner.

Flow - measure say at the garden tap, how long it takes to fill a 10 litre bucket. Reciprocate to get litres per minute. Hope for 20 litres/ min or more.

 

[JDLDIY]

Cheers ChrisR! I had looked on screwfix and could only find a tool for £150 to test the pressure. You've prompted me to have another look, would this do the job;

here

It has a max of 11bar, is that ok (it might as well be 11 megathons if you know what I mean ).

The whole point of all this is to help in choosing the best CH/HW system, so I need to get it right.

Many thanks again.

 

[taydo]

buy a pressure gauge for about 5.00 stick a lump of hose on it and a garden hose pipe connector I have got fan dangled ones but if im in a hurry I still dig the one i made out

 

[JDLDIY]

Thanks taydo. When I measure the pressure, where is best to do it from, is the garden tap ok? I've never seen pressure guages for sale, any idea where I'd look? Mind you I've never been looking before. Can't find any on B&Q's site.
Cheers

 

[taydo]

plumbing merchant I got mine from pts its just a pressure gauge for a sealed sytem

garden tap is fine.

 

[JDLDIY]

My local plumbing merchant only had one for £50, I'll look further afield.............

 

[taydo]

hi plumbworld do one 4 bar for £3.00

 

[JDLDIY]

Hi there, just got myself one from Plumbworld, cost about a tenner with postage. Looks good, goes up to 11 bar and has adaptor attached.

 

[JDLDIY]

Well, having attached the guage to my garden tap, it rose briefly to 6 bar before settling at 3.
How does this rate?
Cheers.

 

[taydo]

Yes thats ok.
The thing to consider when buying new c/h is what you are expecting from it and tying that in with how much you want to spend.

how many bathrooms,

how many people it needs to serve dhw to at one time

do you want power showers

etc etc.

 

[JDLDIY]

Taydo, yeah it's proving to be a tricky decision this. We have 2 bathrooms and I would like the showers to be able to run at the same time. We are going to need to replace the entire CH system as the old one has several shortcomings, including the fact that it is a single pipe system with an old primatic cylinder and signs showing of corrosion. Inefficient rads too. So, I'm coming down to an unvented cylinder (megaflow or similar) with I guess a fairly standard gas boiler.
I would suppose it's likely to set us back about £4k.
What do you think?
I really wanted to do as much of the work myself, but the plumber's not too keen and there will be large parts of the installation, gas and cylinder, which I obviously can't go anywhere near. I wonder how hard it is to replace the heating pipework with a 2 pipe system though? That would cut out a large chunk of the bill.

 

[Novice13]

Dear JDLDIY

We have the same issue to face now with two bathrooms requiring power showers. What system did you go with in the end and are you satisfied with it? thanks very much

 

[JDLDIY]

Hi there. I ended up having a whole new central heating system. Later we went for a megaflo to sort the shower pressures out. Works well.