Hello
Just moved house which has a traditional gravity fed hot water system, with an old back boiler.
This all works fine and has been regularly serviced (except an issue with one of the motorised valves which is unrelated to this post).
The hot and cold water from the taps is fine, but the shower is pretty much unusable.
It has a separate feed with a Stuart Turner twin pump which is on the floor next to the cylinder. The pipe for the hot comes directly off the main pipe that comes out of the top of the cylinder, at a right angle, and goes straight into 15mm. I don't think there is any Surrey etc. type flange. The cold feed from the tank is also 15mm, and both pipes out of the pump are also 15mm, and go up into the loft void and then across to the shower and back down the wall. The drop from the tank to the shower head is about a metre at best.
The pump runs when the shower is turned on, but makes no visible difference, at all. I only know it's running by the noise.
The shower unit itself is a thermostatic bar type, clearly pretty old due to the build up of limescale (it is a very hard water area).
I initially replaced the head and hose as the nozzles where limescaled up, which made no difference. I also took the shower off the wall, after isolating it, and turned the water flow back on, the water coming out seemed barely adequate but more than comes out of the shower head. I took the inlet filters and valve out of the shower, cleaned limescale off them, and replaced, which seemed to make no difference.
I don't think it's air in the pipes going into the loft and back down, as I tried taking the shower head off and sucking water through and it made no difference.
In fact, the situation has got worse, as now water will not flow from the shower head when it is above waist height, and is only (barely) usable by crouching down in the shower tray, whereas it used to come out in the rail at over head height.
I am planning to redo the whole bathroom, probably with an electric shower, and eventually replace the whole system with a combi, so I am after a usable, cheap solution which will allow us to wash until the new bathroom is done.
I know that this set up is never going to be a great shower, but I can't believe it was this bad when installed and considered acceptable.
I was going to try replacing the shower bar, possibly with a manual mixer. Do these allow more flow than the thermostatic types?
Could there be something in the water tank blocking the cold flow into the pump? The gate valve on this pipe appears to be broken as the red wheel just spins, although I can see the spindle turning. Could this be stuck partially open?
Is the issue merely that all the 15mm pipework is just too restrictive to get enough flow into the pump? I understand that the pipes feeding the pump should be 22mm according to Stuart Turner.
There is a pipe coming out of the cylinder about halfway up it, wich appears to be capped off. I don't know what this is, could it be used for an Essex style flange to reduce air in the shower feed (if that is even the problem)?
Thank you to any one who has read this far. Any suggestions or tips would be great. I'm no plumber, so if replacing the feed pipes with 22mm is the only answer then I would get someone in, but as I say I will be replacing everything so I don't want to throw money at this.
Cheers
Just moved house which has a traditional gravity fed hot water system, with an old back boiler.
This all works fine and has been regularly serviced (except an issue with one of the motorised valves which is unrelated to this post).
The hot and cold water from the taps is fine, but the shower is pretty much unusable.
It has a separate feed with a Stuart Turner twin pump which is on the floor next to the cylinder. The pipe for the hot comes directly off the main pipe that comes out of the top of the cylinder, at a right angle, and goes straight into 15mm. I don't think there is any Surrey etc. type flange. The cold feed from the tank is also 15mm, and both pipes out of the pump are also 15mm, and go up into the loft void and then across to the shower and back down the wall. The drop from the tank to the shower head is about a metre at best.
The pump runs when the shower is turned on, but makes no visible difference, at all. I only know it's running by the noise.
The shower unit itself is a thermostatic bar type, clearly pretty old due to the build up of limescale (it is a very hard water area).
I initially replaced the head and hose as the nozzles where limescaled up, which made no difference. I also took the shower off the wall, after isolating it, and turned the water flow back on, the water coming out seemed barely adequate but more than comes out of the shower head. I took the inlet filters and valve out of the shower, cleaned limescale off them, and replaced, which seemed to make no difference.
I don't think it's air in the pipes going into the loft and back down, as I tried taking the shower head off and sucking water through and it made no difference.
In fact, the situation has got worse, as now water will not flow from the shower head when it is above waist height, and is only (barely) usable by crouching down in the shower tray, whereas it used to come out in the rail at over head height.
I am planning to redo the whole bathroom, probably with an electric shower, and eventually replace the whole system with a combi, so I am after a usable, cheap solution which will allow us to wash until the new bathroom is done.
I know that this set up is never going to be a great shower, but I can't believe it was this bad when installed and considered acceptable.
I was going to try replacing the shower bar, possibly with a manual mixer. Do these allow more flow than the thermostatic types?
Could there be something in the water tank blocking the cold flow into the pump? The gate valve on this pipe appears to be broken as the red wheel just spins, although I can see the spindle turning. Could this be stuck partially open?
Is the issue merely that all the 15mm pipework is just too restrictive to get enough flow into the pump? I understand that the pipes feeding the pump should be 22mm according to Stuart Turner.
There is a pipe coming out of the cylinder about halfway up it, wich appears to be capped off. I don't know what this is, could it be used for an Essex style flange to reduce air in the shower feed (if that is even the problem)?
Thank you to any one who has read this far. Any suggestions or tips would be great. I'm no plumber, so if replacing the feed pipes with 22mm is the only answer then I would get someone in, but as I say I will be replacing everything so I don't want to throw money at this.
Cheers