Megaflo and low water pressure. HELP!

[geez]

Hello everyone, I know nothing about DIY and was hoping to get some advice on this issue.
Recently upgrading our boiler and heating system. Opted to go for a 300 litre megaflo indirect, with a new vaillant boiler. We are a large family, house has 5 bedrooms and 2 power showers increasing to 4 power showers next year.
I have been advised to go for the megaflow to provide a fully pressurised system for hot and cold water throughout the enire house. This means I will get that lovely champagne flow from all taps, as well as all showers will be "power" without the need for fitting extra power shower pumps.
Well that is the theory anyway!!!
PROBLEM: my plumber says the cold water pressure to my property is not brilliant, and also the amount of water entering is limited by a 15mm pipe into the property from the mains supply.
He is suggesting replacing the supply pipe from the street to the house with a new blue plastic one.
However, I need to get the water authority to replace the 12 inches of pipe that flows from outside the property to the mains supply (and water meter).
ADVICE NEEDED: is it likely to be OK leaving this last 12 inches as it is and not bother getting the water board to change it? As I hear it takes Thames water upto 3 months to change it and also they charge £600 or so for the job. I understand they are the only ones allowed to interfere with this pipework at the street level, outside my property boundary.
I am concerned that having spent out loads of dosh on replacing the longer section that I am permitted to change, that the supply will still be poor as there will be a bottle-neck at the supply end?

HELP!!!

 

[simond]

I would advise that you do not need to replace the incoming supply pipe and can get an accumulator system. This will accumulate water at the 'standing pressure' of the water main and will give a much higher flow rate for a significant duration.

The specification of the accumulator will determine the duration of the boosted flow. Accumulators are water pressure powered and do not use electricity or pumps, and are silent in operation.

My company have been fitting these products for some years - I have a large on in my own house and we have one going in in Sutton on Monday.

You would be best to get the installation carried out by a firm who fit these units regularly, as your plumber may have given you incorrect advice as to your options. If your standing pressure is over 1.5bar (the flow rate is immaterial) an accumulator can give you what you want.

Finally, legal issues prevent a new Heatrae Sadia Megaflo from being improved by an accumulator. The restriction is placed by the licensee of the accumulator, not Heatrae Sadia. Other UV cylinders are not a problem.

 

[ChrisR]

Well simond would say that, he sells a particular very expensive accumulator (which is only a big pressure vessel)! The patent and license referred to is a rather pathetic scam, in the informed opinion of many of the experienced and knowledgeable guys on this forum who looked at it. It only takes in the naive and gullible. Do a search and you'll find why.

"legal issues prevent a new Heatrae Sadia Megaflo from being improved by an accumulator". I'm not going to go on about it, but this sort of drivel gives plumbers a bad name. It's fraud. Criminal offence. Lock him up in a secure mental hospital!

If you have poor flow into the house, you're going to be short of water with 4 "power showers" (specifications required) pretty damned quick, unless you devote half a spare room to water storage, in an accumulator or otherwise.

The restriction of a Thames Water connection (often referred to as the "ferrule"), at 1/2", is significant, (I'd probably spend the £600) but enlarging the supply pipe back to the boundary to 32mm mdpe would make a big difference. There are several other factors to consider, like the internal plumbing sizes and specs of the taps and mixers. Do you have a cellar?

But first you need to know what the mains pressure (and its variation) is in your area. TW should be able to tell you. Your plumber should have done a spot measurement. If you find your mains is 8 bar, as some near me are, you don't need to worry much about the size of the supply connection! Others are 1.2 bar - different story.

Before you pay through the nose to a cowboy with a one-trick pony with gold painted plastic spurs, find someone independent who knows what he's talking about, whom YOU find convincing with a pen and paper.

 

[Nige F]

Send him down to Sussex .....we`ve got secure units for both young+old

 

[simond]

The patent and license referred to is a rather pathetic scam, in the informed opinion of many of the experienced and knowledgeable guys on this forum who looked at it. It only takes in the naive and gullible. Do a search and you'll find why.

It is a patent. If Chris R thinks he invented it first, he should complain to the correct authority.

"legal issues prevent a new Heatrae Sadia Megaflo from being improved by an accumulator". I'm not going to go on about it, but this sort of drivel gives plumbers a bad name. It's fraud. Criminal offence. Lock him up in a secure mental hospital!

The chap who has the patent will not let us fit one of his products to an HS Megaflo. Simple, it's his product, if we want to use it, we have to follow the rules. I can't see anything fraudulent or criminal there.

Before you pay through the nose to a cowboy with a one-trick pony with gold painted plastic spurs, find someone independent who knows what he's talking about, whom YOU find convincing with a pen and paper.

I assume you class yourself in the 'independent knows what he is talking about' category. Well, so do I. If the OP wants to see an accumulator install and use our flow meter, he is more than welcome.

He can then judge for himself who wears the spurs around here.[/quote]

 

[geez]

Sorry guys, I seem to have started up World War III

Any more advice on this issue, as opposed to arguments?!

Many thanks to all who have helped so far however........

 

[simond]

We had WWIII a few months ago, this is just a reasoned debate with a few low punches thrown in.

 

[Sider]

To cut a long story short geez, simond recomended an accumulator which is a very expensive option and the OP after much deliberation opted to have his mains pipe increased in size and it solved his problem.

 

[simond]

I think that is a good summary, Sider. But I don't recall reading the last bit about the OP reporting back. Are you sure?

The largest standard unvented/accumulator set up costs around £2K, this includes the unvented hot water cylinder and the accumulator. The accumulator is 635mm in diameter so occupies a similar space to the HW cylinder.

An accumulator isn't the right solution in every case, but is anyone (apart from Chris R) prepared to argue that it shouldn't be suggested as one of the options for the questions raised in Geez's post?

 

[doitall]

An accumulator isn't the right solution in every case, but is anyone (apart from Chris R) prepared to argue that it shouldn't be suggested as one of the options for the questions raised in Geez's post?

Finally, legal issues prevent a new Heatrae Sadia Megaflo from being improved by an accumulator. The restriction is placed by the licensee of the accumulator, not Heatrae Sadia. Other UV cylinders are not a problem.

Does your 2K include strengthening the floor, if you can find somewhere for it to go.

Most people don't want 1 cylinder let alone 2, so where would you normally fit this tin can, in the shower perhaps, I mean an 1600mm x 800mm is not looking very pretty in the lounge, and the airing cupboard is not an option in most houses.

 

[Sider]

simond said

.

But I don't recall reading the last bit about the OP reporting back. Are you sure?

Positive. Have a look here -

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51701&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=255

 

[ChrisR]

but is anyone (apart from Chris R) prepared to argue that it shouldn't be suggested as one of the options for the questions raised in Geez's post?

Snake oil is one of the options for my grannie's bad knee and who would anyone be so say it wouldn't be worth a try?

To push forward a particular solution when you don't know the parameters of the situation is plain dumb engineering.
When it's the solution you sell, it's plain dishonest.
When the suggestion comes with bogus claims about a bogus patent, it's plain revolting.

This, as researchers will find, is the patent which only applies in wierd and irrelevant implementations, though the charlatans claim it's general. It comes from the clowns who tried to patent the Balanced Flue.

Then simond even gets the fact about his own product wrong.

The accumulator is 635mm in diameter so occupies a similar space to the HW cylinder.

The client says they want 300L of hot water, and they'll need balanced cold as well.
You do the sums - it'll be a rather TALL story.

 

[simond]

Sider

Thanks for the link, I stand corrected. The problem was not the water supply, however, but an internal piece of undersized pipework put in by an inexperienced plumber. None of us - apart from Chris R - were aware of this.

Chris R

You obviously hold some very strong views about accumulators, I feel that it is colouring the impartial advice that you normally give.

It comes from the clowns who tried to patent the Balanced Flue. The patent was not filed by the 'clowns' you refer to, it was by a clever independent heating engineer in Brightlington on Sea. He may well be cleverer than you , he has better manners for sure.

The client says they want 300L of hot water, and they'll need balanced cold as well.
You do the sums - it'll be a rather TALL story.
You are not factoring that the recharge time for an accumulator is less than heating the equivalent amount of cold water in the HW cylinder. But in any case we are following the manufacturer sizing guidelines for the OPs house. So far, we have not encountered a household where a 500litre nominal accumulator has not met their needs.

Whether your words are worth more than those of us who have fitted close-on to a hundred of these units is up to the customer. I suggest that your emotional language betrays the fact that you are the charlatan in this instance.

 

[Sider]

Simond
You obviously have a non-impartial view with regard to the accumulators as you install them and recieve payment for their fitment.
However pushing them like a salesman on an open forum is usually not well recieved by others who understand what can and cannot be acheived by them.
The patent information you gave is rubbish and you know it. The guys on that thread tore it to pieces.

Why mislead people ?.

 

[simond]

Sider

That is not true. I told everyone they could see the patent on the patent office web site. It was reported on this site that it wasn't there. Then someone (Softus, I think) found it on the patent office web site.

Some of the regulars on this site, having first of all decided that accumulators didn't work - and more than one respondent craftily edited their post retrospectively in this regard - then said the patent was fraudulent because they had all thought of it first.

Anyone can fit an accumulator system. They are, for instance, available from the largest plumbers merchant in the UK.

If I recommend a Worcester, Vaillant or a Viessmann boiler, am I advertising? I don't see the difference. We fit them too, and I offer recommendation based upon large volume installed base experience.

In five years time this technology will be commonly used and you will want to conveniently forget your postings. The more emotionally fragile of you will retrospectively edit your posts so that history is rewritten.

I stand by the accumulator invention, I only wish I was the one who really had thought of it first and I was receiving the licence payments. Steve Elsey deserves to be a very rich man, I take my hat off to him.