Advice on Improving Water Pressure

[MickyDZ]

I have a "traditional" vented hot water system - cold water tank in the loft, hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard and an oil-fired boiler downstairs. The system is a gravity system, no pump on the hot water side, but the CH is pumped.

Water pressure around the house though is not so good, particularly the shower and the downstairs fittings in the utility room.

I was thinking of having the hot water cylinder replaced (its quite old, probably furred-up, looks to be the original from the 60's when the house as built) with a newer, larger tank and at the same time install a dual impeller pump to improve the pressure for all of the cold/hot water around the house (ie as opposed to say just pumping the water to the shower). In other word the cold feed from the loft and the hot feed from the cylinder would be pumped around the house.

Is this approach OK?

I had one opinion that it wasn't worth installing a bigger tank and also that you couldn't install pumps into gravity-fed systems anyway.

I could understand that I need to check the boiler output to ensure its man enough for all of the radiators + hot water, but can't see what the problem is with installing a water pump.

Grateful for any views.

Thanks

 

[keego]

There's no need to change the cylinder although the new foam insulated ones are more efficient. You could transfer you tank fed cold supply over to mains which would improve the pressure on the cold & just have the hot supply pumped, you'll need a 3 bar pump.
Boiler output shouldn't really come into it as even if you put a bigger cylinder in it won't bit that much bigger than the old one.

 

[MickyDZ]

Thanks for the advice keego, especially regarding switching the tank fed cold to mains. Didn't think of that one!

Just one question about the pump - if I install a 3 bar pump, presumably I need to be careful that older fittings don't 'blow' under the additional pressure.

Is there anything I can do to check in advance or do I just turn it all on and wait for the leaks!

Thanks