Hi all,
More misery from SJ I'm afraid... I have had a pumped shower for yonks and it has always worked fine. CW is fed from a separate take-off from the tank in the loft, HW from an Essex flange from the HW tank in the airing cupboard - never any problems with pressure. All pipework to this pump is 15mm.
At the weekend I fitted a Surrey flange to the HW tank as I will eventually be installing an Aqua Lisa in the other bathroom. The feed off the Surrey flange goes about 1 metre, then a maintenance valve (full flow), then another metre into the loft, and is then capped off for now. Obviously, to fit the valve I had to drain a little bit of water from the hot tank, as well as emptying the cold tank to install a new tank connector for the cold feed to the Aqua Lisa. All new pipework is 22mm.
Since fitting the Surrey flange, which should have made no difference to the Essex flange as the Essex flange is lower down on the tank, the 'old' shower works fine for about 4 or 5 minutes (pump kicks in, thermostatic mixer sorts itself out, and loads of lovely hot water comes out of the shower head). Then, and this is where I'm stuck, the water pressure drops off to the same as it would be without the pump, and the pump stops working. After about another 5 minutes, it all works fine again for a few minutes then cuts out!
To my meagre brain-cell this would appear to be caused by a drop in pressure in the cold tank not supplying sufficient cold water and/or head to the hot water to operate the solenoid on the pump? Or have I got that totally wrong? (nothing new there, then!) When I am in the shower at silly o'clock in the morning the rest of the household are doing the decent thing (sleeping) and not drawing off any water.
The mains feed pipe to the CW tank is 15mm with a 14 year-old stop-cock in the airing cupboard. I thought maybe the stop-cock was mis-behaving and not filling the tank quick enough, but I checked and it all seems OK (we have a water softener on the system, but I'm not sure if that is plumbed before the feed to the loft or after, so if it is after I guess limescale could be a problem although like I said the tank does appearss to fill up OK).
Is this possibly something to do with a) the Surrey flange, b) me draining part of the system, or c) none of the above? It justs seems very coincidental that everything was tickety-boo before I fitted the Surrey flange...
Hope someone can help. Many thanks, SJ
More misery from SJ I'm afraid... I have had a pumped shower for yonks and it has always worked fine. CW is fed from a separate take-off from the tank in the loft, HW from an Essex flange from the HW tank in the airing cupboard - never any problems with pressure. All pipework to this pump is 15mm.
At the weekend I fitted a Surrey flange to the HW tank as I will eventually be installing an Aqua Lisa in the other bathroom. The feed off the Surrey flange goes about 1 metre, then a maintenance valve (full flow), then another metre into the loft, and is then capped off for now. Obviously, to fit the valve I had to drain a little bit of water from the hot tank, as well as emptying the cold tank to install a new tank connector for the cold feed to the Aqua Lisa. All new pipework is 22mm.
Since fitting the Surrey flange, which should have made no difference to the Essex flange as the Essex flange is lower down on the tank, the 'old' shower works fine for about 4 or 5 minutes (pump kicks in, thermostatic mixer sorts itself out, and loads of lovely hot water comes out of the shower head). Then, and this is where I'm stuck, the water pressure drops off to the same as it would be without the pump, and the pump stops working. After about another 5 minutes, it all works fine again for a few minutes then cuts out!
To my meagre brain-cell this would appear to be caused by a drop in pressure in the cold tank not supplying sufficient cold water and/or head to the hot water to operate the solenoid on the pump? Or have I got that totally wrong? (nothing new there, then!) When I am in the shower at silly o'clock in the morning the rest of the household are doing the decent thing (sleeping) and not drawing off any water.
The mains feed pipe to the CW tank is 15mm with a 14 year-old stop-cock in the airing cupboard. I thought maybe the stop-cock was mis-behaving and not filling the tank quick enough, but I checked and it all seems OK (we have a water softener on the system, but I'm not sure if that is plumbed before the feed to the loft or after, so if it is after I guess limescale could be a problem although like I said the tank does appearss to fill up OK).
Is this possibly something to do with a) the Surrey flange, b) me draining part of the system, or c) none of the above? It justs seems very coincidental that everything was tickety-boo before I fitted the Surrey flange...
Hope someone can help. Many thanks, SJ