Best way to boost multiple showers?

[Henry_121]

Hi guys, any help here would be appreciated before I undertake a lot of work that I would ideally like to avoid. I need to boost the pressure and flow of my showers. Currently the flow rate of the weakest shower is 2.3 litres a minute which is upstairs. There is one more downstairs and will eventually be a third shower ( upstairs) but we are a way off that. There is a small caveat in that the downstairs shower only has its hot fed from the vented system and the cold feed is direct from mains with pressure reducer on this cold side, just before shower , to help balance the two feeds. The cold main for this shower is plenty strong and I have no need to boost this side.

I had thought that the best way to solve my problem was to fit a whole house booster pump, on to the vented system. Most likely a Stuart turner monsoon universal 3.0 bar (from the advice of Stuart turner sales).I had planned to install this just as manufacturer intended. All relatively straight foward , beside hot water cylinder. Feed from s flange for hot. Cold supply coming direct from CWS tank ideally in an existing pipe running near the airing cupboard. Obviously this is the real world and none of that worked out.

I have attached photos of the airing cupboard showing the setup. The reason I am potentially rethinking my plans is that the hot water outlet goes immediately into a cavity wall and travels up to the attic where you find the t junction ( also pictured ) that splits the hot water away from the expansion pipe. This isn’t ideal as I am told the pump shouldn’t go in the attic so I’m unsure of how to get my hot supply down to the airing cupboard now without having to run pipe down through the cavity walls in order to to split the expansion pipe from hot water.

The next problem is that any cold pipe feeds from the CWS tank are running no where near airing cupboard. They (also pictured ) are coming out of the other side of loft tank. There are two. One feeding the upstairs shower and the other feeding the cold water needs of the rest of upstairs. This obviously means I will have to connect these so that one pump feeds both.

This all means that the only way I can see of using my whole house pump idea requires a lot of pipe work. It would also have to be run up and down in a cavity wall with poor access. This makes me nervous as I don’t have a pipe bender or blow torch to do copper work and I would worry about plastic where I can’t access it to check.

Alternatively can I get away with the pump in attic some way and reconfigure the piping up there but use plastic? At least here I can check it. Or finally the last idea is to just buy multiple smaller pumps and connect them directly to showers. But then this wouldn’t be a direct uninterrupted feed to the shower pumps plus the downstairs shower is a fair distance from the hot water cylinder which I don’t think is ideal either so this is maybe a non starter. What do you gents think is the best option in terms of ease , cost effectiveness and also the right way to do the job? I had budgeted a little over £600 for the whole house pump. Thank you for any help you can provide. I really appreciate it

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[trojanhawrs]

Is your cavity full of blown insulation? Will be a bit of a nightmare to run new pipes if so. According to their manual the minimum suction head is 500mm so if you can mount the pump basically to the ceiling you won't have to raise the tank much. Looks like it's sat on a plinth I'd guess is around 300mm high, plus your ceiling joist depth. Not sure if the existing vent pipe setup would knacker the warranty though.

I take it the cylinder cupboard is ground floor?

 

[Henry_121]

Thank you for the reply I posted this ages ago on another site and got nothing.

Sorry cavity was the wrong term. It’s a stud wall but it does still have insulation in it plus I’ll have to open it up as I’m guessing there is most likely a horizontal timber running along that I will have to drill through to allow pipes to run down. Just seems like it’s going to be a mess of a job in an already decorated part of the house.

The cylinder cupboard is on first floor below attic.

You are now just making me realise that if I go for the whole house pump idea, I will have to run pipe inside that wall regardless of whether i install the pump by the cylinder or in the attic to allow for the installation of S flange which I am very hesitant about installing a whole house pump without.

I think then, what my question really comes down to is this. Can I get away with a lot less work and use multiple individual cheaper shower pumps? These would be fitted directly on shower supply pipes, located at each actual shower, even though they are quite far from the cylinder and may be breaking distance rules. Alternatively, do I just need to suck it up , open that wall, run pipes and fit the whole house pump by the cylinder? Or perhaps someone has a better idea all together to get stronger showers.

 

[trojanhawrs]

Why not just drill holes in the ceiling and run the pipes on the wall surface? I assumed there was a finished room above.

 

[Henry_121]

Why not just drill holes in the ceiling and run the pipes on the wall surface? I assumed there was a finished room above.

That is essentially the option I have for fitting the whole house pump. It’s just that Due to the way the slope of the roof works ( house is a chalet bungalow) in order to come up into the attic I need to go into that wall. This is only a little more work as just drilling up as you say but because it involves running pipes up and down and re configuring the pipe work in attic as I said in initial post , it just involved more work than I wanted. I’m guessing though , that you feel this is just necessary work and I am not getting around it any way ?

 

[trojanhawrs]

There's going to be a bit of pipework I don't think you can avoid that. The hot only needs to connect into your existing run where you'll be separating it at the vent tee. You'll need 2 new colds though and one of them will need to run under the tank to tee into your existing cold supplies. If you're not comfortable soldering I'd definitely suggest picking up a cheap bender anyway, once you've got the wall opened up you can chuck a 90 in the bottom of your pipe runs and feed it up the cavity, keeping any compression fittings visible in the loft/airing cupboard.

You're going to need to alter the vent pipe where it goes into the cylinder too if you're using a cylinder flange, the vent pipe will need to be top entry and has to be continually rising. Might well be as simple as cutting it short and 90 the bottom/socket the top.

 

[Henry_121]

There's going to be a bit of pipework I don't think you can avoid that. The hot only needs to connect into your existing run where you'll be separating it at the vent tee. You'll need 2 new colds though and one of them will need to run under the tank to tee into your existing cold supplies. If you're not comfortable soldering I'd definitely suggest picking up a cheap bender anyway, once you've got the wall opened up you can chuck a 90 in the bottom of your pipe runs and feed it up the cavity, keeping any compression fittings visible in the loft/airing cupboard.

You're going to need to alter the vent pipe where it goes into the cylinder too if you're using a cylinder flange, the vent pipe will need to be top entry and has to be continually rising. Might well be as simple as cutting it short and 90 the bottom/socket the top.

Yea fair enough. Just need to suck it up then . I thought this might be the case but just wanted to confirm before I went ahead in case there was an easier way. I will stick with the copper and install in the cylinder cupboard. I don't really mind soldering, I just have to buy a blow torch and bender which I was trying to avoid but sure I will have them for the future. I appreciate the help Trojan Thank you.

 

[trojanhawrs]

No probs, just my opinion. At least you'll be future proofed. It might be easier to make a new hole in the tank for pump supply and just cap existing cold feeds.

 

[Iddy]

Have you considered an unvented cylinder? Along with an accumulator if need be? Depends on your incoming mains pressure, flow rate, space available, and budget!

 

[Henry_121]

Have you considered an unvented cylinder? Along with an accumulator if need be? Depends on your incoming mains pressure, flow rate, space available, and budget!

Budget and amount of work are the limiting factors. I have £600 set aside for the pump. I will probably throw a few hundred more at materials and tools but i think that still less than changing to an unvented system and as far as I know the pump is less work than changing the system. I could be wrong though but Thankyou for the suggestion.

 

[luckyE]

Hi, I have pretty same setup with Stuart turner monsoon. 4 bathrooms. The issue is the hot water runs out pretty quickly when 2 showers are used simultaneously, tho with no loss of pressure. The tank in the picture does not look massive. I am seriously thinking of an unvented cylinder with an accumulator. I had the pump replaced when we moved in the house, which I regret now

 

[Henry_121]

Hi, I have pretty same setup with Stuart turner monsoon. 4 bathrooms. The issue is the hot water runs out pretty quickly when 2 showers are used simultaneously, tho with no loss of pressure. The tank in the picture does not look massive. I am seriously thinking of an unvented cylinder with an accumulator. I had the pump replaced when we moved in the house, which I regret now

Do you notice that the shower runs out quickly if just one is being used ? The tank is 25 gallons. Would that be the same or smaller than your own ?

 

[luckyE]

I have 200L hot water tank, water usage is high due to high flow rates. so it really depends on how long the showers are . In general hot water depletes rapidly, and never enough if girls wash their hair !

 

[Henry_121]

I have 200L hot water tank, water usage is high due to high flow rates. so it really depends on how long the showers are . In general hot water depletes rapidly, and never enough if girls wash their hair !

Yea so ours would be 114L then. Does make me a bit worried about fitting it. Can’t see us ever having two people showering at once but my wife and her industrial sized mop of hair is fond of a long shower.

 

[luckyE]

her industrial sized mop of hair is fond of a long shower.

Good Luck Mate