Hi,
I'll give you a brief rundown of our nightmare! We had a new bathroom fitted and the bathroom fitter recommended we get a digital power shower, so I bought a Mira Platinum pumped digital shower. He fitted it to our system, which consists of a regular boiler, cold water tank in the loft (this JUST feeds the cold supply to the shower) and a hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard. This is fed from it's own cistern which is built into the hot water cylinder. It's very old!!
As a result, the heads aren't balanced, and the capacity isn't big enough, it runs out of water. Therefore, it just isn't working very well. Neither the cold water storage tank in the loft or the hot water cylinder are large enough.
Then the boiler packed in and rather than change the new Mira Platinum pumped shower, we went for another regular boiler, a new Vailant. This has been working fine.
Now however it's getting annoying only being able to have a 4 minute shower so we want to do something about it. The options are...
1. Change the cold water tank in the loft for the minimum required, 230 litres, allow this to feed both the cold supply to the shower pump and the new hot water cylinder to provide equal heads. Fit a new vented hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard fed from the cold tank in the loft. This needs to be quite large. We would also have to reconnect the old small cold water tank in the loft to the central heating system. This is currently fed from a small compartment in the hot water cylinder.
2. Change the old vented hot water cylinder for a new pressurised unvented cylinder. The old cold water storage tank in the loft will become the heating cistern. Easy job. There's already mains pressure to all the taps including the bathroom, mains pressure water supply in the airing cupboard and an overflow from the old hot water cistern which we can use for the pressure relief valve. With this option I would have to change my shower mixer to a pumped version as it's different. This is about £300+!
I'm currently getting 3.0 bar constant mains water pressure in the house. Flow from the big bath tap is 13.6 litres per minute.
I'm also getting 15 litres per minute from the Mira shower when on fully cold (so running off the cold tank in the loft only).
So, the question is, what option is best? Will I see a reduction in flow from the pressurised unpumped version, or will it be about the same, or better maybe? The pressurised unvented tanks seem to be regulated to 3.0 bar which is what I'm getting anyway. My pumped shower is fantastic for a while, but the flow soon drops off when the tank empties and can't refill quick enough.
Any and all help appreciated please as I'm aiming to order the tanks and/or new shower ASAP!
Thanks,
Dan
I'll give you a brief rundown of our nightmare! We had a new bathroom fitted and the bathroom fitter recommended we get a digital power shower, so I bought a Mira Platinum pumped digital shower. He fitted it to our system, which consists of a regular boiler, cold water tank in the loft (this JUST feeds the cold supply to the shower) and a hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard. This is fed from it's own cistern which is built into the hot water cylinder. It's very old!!
As a result, the heads aren't balanced, and the capacity isn't big enough, it runs out of water. Therefore, it just isn't working very well. Neither the cold water storage tank in the loft or the hot water cylinder are large enough.
Then the boiler packed in and rather than change the new Mira Platinum pumped shower, we went for another regular boiler, a new Vailant. This has been working fine.
Now however it's getting annoying only being able to have a 4 minute shower so we want to do something about it. The options are...
1. Change the cold water tank in the loft for the minimum required, 230 litres, allow this to feed both the cold supply to the shower pump and the new hot water cylinder to provide equal heads. Fit a new vented hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard fed from the cold tank in the loft. This needs to be quite large. We would also have to reconnect the old small cold water tank in the loft to the central heating system. This is currently fed from a small compartment in the hot water cylinder.
2. Change the old vented hot water cylinder for a new pressurised unvented cylinder. The old cold water storage tank in the loft will become the heating cistern. Easy job. There's already mains pressure to all the taps including the bathroom, mains pressure water supply in the airing cupboard and an overflow from the old hot water cistern which we can use for the pressure relief valve. With this option I would have to change my shower mixer to a pumped version as it's different. This is about £300+!
I'm currently getting 3.0 bar constant mains water pressure in the house. Flow from the big bath tap is 13.6 litres per minute.
I'm also getting 15 litres per minute from the Mira shower when on fully cold (so running off the cold tank in the loft only).
So, the question is, what option is best? Will I see a reduction in flow from the pressurised unpumped version, or will it be about the same, or better maybe? The pressurised unvented tanks seem to be regulated to 3.0 bar which is what I'm getting anyway. My pumped shower is fantastic for a while, but the flow soon drops off when the tank empties and can't refill quick enough.
Any and all help appreciated please as I'm aiming to order the tanks and/or new shower ASAP!
Thanks,
Dan