You may already be shaking your head in reading the title.
I've purchased a fixed shower head with a thermostatic valve. A plumber has installed it for me. The shower head is positioned about three inches below the top of the ceiling and the valve is at about chest height. I have a water pump in my flat as well. I have a cold water cistern in an airing cupboard and my flat is only one floor.
In testing the shower, it ran beautifully and I was quite pleased.
Today, I tried it out and when turning the valve on, I got nothing even though I have a pump. What I realized is that while we were testing the shower the day before, the toilet was filling up at that time. This flow of cold water to the WC had triggered the pump to start pumping water. So, when I opened the shower valve, water came out.
I realize now that the negative head situation that there is no flow at all happening when I turn the valve on. Because of this, the pump never kicks in.
I can get the shower to start if I turn on the bath taps. This kicks the pump into action. Then I have to turn on the shower valve to start the shower, then turn off the bath taps.
When I turn off the shower valve, I have to repeat the process above to get the shower going again. I know that this will become increasingly annoying as time goes on. I have a tiler coming over in the next two hours to tile the wall up and I'm not sure what I should do.
I cannot lower the shower head because the cold water cistern is too low as it stands. The shower head would be just over my head and I'm not that tall anyway.
I have a new pump I was planning to install, it looks like it may run in negative head situations. It's a salamander ESP 75CPV.
Any suggestions, warnings, green lights?
I've purchased a fixed shower head with a thermostatic valve. A plumber has installed it for me. The shower head is positioned about three inches below the top of the ceiling and the valve is at about chest height. I have a water pump in my flat as well. I have a cold water cistern in an airing cupboard and my flat is only one floor.
In testing the shower, it ran beautifully and I was quite pleased.
Today, I tried it out and when turning the valve on, I got nothing even though I have a pump. What I realized is that while we were testing the shower the day before, the toilet was filling up at that time. This flow of cold water to the WC had triggered the pump to start pumping water. So, when I opened the shower valve, water came out.
I realize now that the negative head situation that there is no flow at all happening when I turn the valve on. Because of this, the pump never kicks in.
I can get the shower to start if I turn on the bath taps. This kicks the pump into action. Then I have to turn on the shower valve to start the shower, then turn off the bath taps.
When I turn off the shower valve, I have to repeat the process above to get the shower going again. I know that this will become increasingly annoying as time goes on. I have a tiler coming over in the next two hours to tile the wall up and I'm not sure what I should do.
I cannot lower the shower head because the cold water cistern is too low as it stands. The shower head would be just over my head and I'm not that tall anyway.
I have a new pump I was planning to install, it looks like it may run in negative head situations. It's a salamander ESP 75CPV.
Any suggestions, warnings, green lights?
