Air problems

[Beena72]

I've got a shower pump, the pipes are all as shown in any diagram i've seen, with the exception of the pipe coming out of the top of the HW cylinder, which splits to taps and shower at an equal tee. I'm getting quite a bit of air through when drawing hot water, and this is especially affecting the shower pump operation (cold side pump is firing up, hot side isn't straight away).

From what i've been able to find I either need a surrey flange in the top or an essex flange in the side. Both look like they'll need a fair bit of work (pipes for the Surrey, scary cylinder cutting for the essex). As there is a ruddy great big hole already in the tank where the immersion would fit, is there anything which would screw directly into that and fix my problem? I'd have thought a j shaped tube dropping down from that into the water would do the trick. If not, I shall have to go with a surrey flange before another shower pump dies......

Thanks for any advice..

 

[JohnD]

I don't like the sound of air in the water, do you think the suction of the pump exceeds the capicity of the feed from the cold tank to the hot cylinder?

How high up is the cold tank, and what size is the cold feed? Presumably there are no valves in the way?

 

[Beena72]

The cold water tank is in the loft, about 7.5 feet above the pump, the pump and hot cylinder are situated next to each other on the floor. I'll check the cold water feed to the cylinder to see what gauge the pipe is. There is one valve, but i'm not sure whether that is for the feed to the cold water tank or the CW to cylinder feed. Again, 'll check.

If you think that the pump may be drawing too hard, is it worth me turning the pump down very low to see if it still continues? I'm not sure it is that becuse the pump isn't kicking in straight away, and if it's the pump drawing too hard, it'd get worse the longer i had the pump on (wouldn't it?). It also doesn't splutter once the pump is going full tilt.

Will give more info this evening when i've measured pipes.

Thanks for the response.

[sorry, meant to also say that the taps don't splutter with the air except a tiny bit very rarely, it's just the shower that does it consistently]