I am planning to have an en-suite (shower, basin, WC) in our upstairs front bedroom and would appreciate advice on whether my idea for the water supply is suitable (or whether there are better alternatives.)
Existing setup: family bathroom (upstairs off the back of the house) has a conventional low-pressure, vented HW system - condensing boiler heating a HW tank (with back-up immersion heater) in an airing cupboard. This supplies HW to basin & bath, as well as to kitchen sinks downstairs. Both HW & CW are supplied to a shower in the bathroom via a pump, (ShowerForce easiBoost, continuous duty cycle) - the HW from tank to pump via a Surrey flange, the CW from the header tanks in the loft. (For historic reasons, there are two CW header tanks in the loft.)
The only mains CW upstairs is in the bathroom, needing a pipe run of some 13 metres or so to where the en-suite is to go, so the landing & bedroom floors will have to be disrupted in any case.
My proposal is to have 3 sets of pipes, mains CW, and pumped supplies of both HW & CW from bathroom to the en-suite (pumped HW & CW for the shower, pumped HW to the basin and mains CW for the basin & WC.)
One query is whether this is practical - running supplies from one pump to both existing shower and to the new basin & shower. Should it work with the existing pump, an up-rated pump - or not at all? While it seems unlikely that we will use both showers at once, obviously a new occupant of our house might. (Our main consideration is having an en-suite WC, but it makes sense to put in a shower at the same time.)
An alternative, that I would rather NOT consider, would be to have an electric water heater for the en-suite basin & shower. My reasons against this are that (a) it would involve running a power cable from the consumer unit - so even more disruption in the house; (b) I would need a new consumer unit as there are no spare ways in the existing one; (c) the water heater would take up space which isn't available in the new en-suite.
Constructive comments & suggestions welcome.
Existing setup: family bathroom (upstairs off the back of the house) has a conventional low-pressure, vented HW system - condensing boiler heating a HW tank (with back-up immersion heater) in an airing cupboard. This supplies HW to basin & bath, as well as to kitchen sinks downstairs. Both HW & CW are supplied to a shower in the bathroom via a pump, (ShowerForce easiBoost, continuous duty cycle) - the HW from tank to pump via a Surrey flange, the CW from the header tanks in the loft. (For historic reasons, there are two CW header tanks in the loft.)
The only mains CW upstairs is in the bathroom, needing a pipe run of some 13 metres or so to where the en-suite is to go, so the landing & bedroom floors will have to be disrupted in any case.
My proposal is to have 3 sets of pipes, mains CW, and pumped supplies of both HW & CW from bathroom to the en-suite (pumped HW & CW for the shower, pumped HW to the basin and mains CW for the basin & WC.)
One query is whether this is practical - running supplies from one pump to both existing shower and to the new basin & shower. Should it work with the existing pump, an up-rated pump - or not at all? While it seems unlikely that we will use both showers at once, obviously a new occupant of our house might. (Our main consideration is having an en-suite WC, but it makes sense to put in a shower at the same time.)
An alternative, that I would rather NOT consider, would be to have an electric water heater for the en-suite basin & shower. My reasons against this are that (a) it would involve running a power cable from the consumer unit - so even more disruption in the house; (b) I would need a new consumer unit as there are no spare ways in the existing one; (c) the water heater would take up space which isn't available in the new en-suite.
Constructive comments & suggestions welcome.
