Mains Pressure Booster

[Garnett13]

Hi there, sorry if this has been asked a lot before. Even just pointers to other resources would be very welcome.

We live on the second (top) floor of a small block of flats.

Our water pressure is not great. We seem to get just under 1 bar (at least thatt's what the boiler registers). We have a Remeha Avanta Plus 28c combi boiler.

We had a builder round looking at other jobs and he looked at the large pipe in the top corner of our bathroom and said that we could fit a mains pressure booster pump which would benefit our floor (ie our flat and the other flat next door).

I think he said that he suspected that each floor fed directly of the mains.

Does any of this make sense and can anyone point me in the direction of additional resources so I can read up on our options.

Thanks a lot.

 

[muggles]

The pressure displayed on your boiler is the pressure in your heating system, not the pressure / flow rate (you're interested in flow rate, not pressure) of the water coming out of your taps.

Your builder sounds like he only barely knows what he's talking about

Measure your flow rate out of your kitchen tap - take a bucket of known volume, and time how long it takes the cold tap to fill it when turned full on, then let us know the results

 

[Blagard]

I agree with muggles. What we are trying to find out is how many litres you can get out in a minute.

 

[Garnett13]

Hi there.

I measured pressure out of the bath taps and out of the mixer shower.

Cold tap - 10 litres per minute
Hot tap - 6 ltres per minute
Shower @ 30°C - 4 litres per minute
Shower @ 38°C - 4.5 litres per minute (that's right - the shower is slightly more powerful at a hotter temperature!)

We had the builder back in. He's quoted £2,100+VAT labour to install a mains pump - this one in fact - Stuart Turner Flo-Mate 3 Bar (Combi-Boiler) Mains Pressure Booster Pump 240V.

 

[sooey]

A good general rule of thumb is 'Don't let a builder do your plumbing".
Would you ask a plumber to build a wall? Or a plasterer to fit a carpet?

 

[diverdee]

he wants 2100 plus vat to fit one of these!!!! did he have a gun and mask

 

[Garnett13]

How much would you expect to pay for installation?

 

[diverdee]

providing electric supply not to far away and cold water main is accessible should take him a day tops.so days Labour and cost of pump[/quote]

 

[Agile]

He does not know much about plumbing but he knows a lot about charging ( or at least over charging! )

It would need one pump for each flat ! Perhaps he means that and the price is for two pumps so perhaps its not quite so high.

I would expect to charge about £300 each for installing.

Tony

 

[chantelle]

He does not know much about plumbing but he knows a lot about charging ( or at least over charging! )

It would need one pump for each flat ! Perhaps he means that and the price is for two pumps so perhaps its not quite so high.

Builder is quite right,don`t know why you are being advised to measure your flow rate at sink or whatever because it is the incoming mains pressure you need to know not the flow rate,Flow rate and pressure are two different things. You may indeed fit a pump on your own main in your flat to boost the water pressure to 1.5 bar or 1 bar, He seems to know a lot more about plumbing than some of the rest of the posters here.Price is way too high though.

 

[Blagard]

Hi there.

I measured pressure out of the bath taps and out of the mixer shower.

Cold tap - 10 litres per minute
Hot tap - 6 ltres per minute
Shower @ 30°C - 4 litres per minute
Shower @ 38°C - 4.5 litres per minute (that's right - the shower is slightly more powerful at a hotter temperature!)

We had the builder back in. He's quoted £2,100+VAT labour to install a mains pump - this one in fact - Stuart Turner Flo-Mate 3 Bar (Combi-Boiler) Mains Pressure Booster Pump 240V.

I trust you have read the technical literature and note that the maximum delivery flow rate is 12 litres per minute. The point of asking you about the flow rate was to establish what sort of issue(s) your low pressure presented.

Currently your cold supply although low pressure is giving you just 2 litres per minute less than the maximum the pump is allowed to deliver. So you would not notice much improvement there. However, the pump may give you an improvement on the hot water supply. The pressure loss through a combi does affect the flow rate so the boost in pressure with just the hot tap running will be more significant. But remember these types of pump (direct connection to mains) are limited (by the water regulations) to a maximum 12 litres per minute of supply (total hot and cold).

To achieve higher than a 12 litre/minute flow rate requires a different solution utilising a break tank and a different pump.

So now you need to consider if the expense is worth it! (Not using that quote of course)

 

[Agile]

Hi there.

I measured pressure out of the bath taps and out of the mixer shower.

Cold tap - 10 litres per minute
Hot tap - 6 ltres per minute
Shower @ 30°C - 4 litres per minute
Shower @ 38°C - 4.5 litres per minute (that's right - the shower is slightly more powerful at a hotter temperature!)

You have measured the flow!

Its not clear if you get all those flows at the same time! I suspect not!

In that case the pump will give a dramatic improvement in the flow from each outlet and probably close to the maximum of 12 li/min that the pump is limited at to meet the water regulations.

Unfortunately if you share the supply pipe with your neighbour then you will probably take away all of their supply when using the pump.

Furthermore if the neighbour opened their tap its quite likely that it would cause air to be sucked in which would reduce your supply flow!

Builders don't understand these things and when they have fitted something they want to charge you even more to resolve the problem!

A new dedicated supply pipe to the street is the only proper and best solution!

Tony Glazier

 

[simond]

Without the static pressure reading I dont know how you can be so convinced that a replacement pipe will solve all the problems. And running your own pipe across a freehold owned by others is usually very difficult.

A static pressure test will tell you whether an accumulator will work. This would not necessarily require a pump (depending on static pressure) but would offer a flowrate vastly in excess of 12 l/m, which it seems you have pretty much already got.

An accumulator without pump would cost less than your quote: if measurement showed you needed a charger pump with an accumulator the cost would be higher but the solution would work much better than the 12 l/m you are otherwise looking at.