Options for increasing flow rate/pressure

[djheath]

Hi,

My gf's mum has just had a new bathroom installed. The new bathroom has a new mixer tap on the sink and mixer tap/shower head on the bath.

The house is quite old (1890's) and the bathroom room is located on the first floor, in what could be considered the roof of the property. They have a small header tank (50 cms high x 60cms long x 50 cms wide) above the bathroom which feeds the hot water tank on one feed, (located in the bathroom) and then sink and bath cold supplies respectively, on a second feed.

The problem is, there is only about 8 inches between the bottom of the header tank and the top of the shower head, so there is no pressure on the cold side of the shower. The water dribbles out. The bath cold tap isn't too bad, and the sink tap is ok, but not great.

What solutions are there to increase the flow rate, pressure of the cold side of the system?

I would assume a pump could be used, but I am concerned that it would empty the header tank before it could be resupplied by the mains. This happens at the minute, without a pump, if a bath or shower is taken and yesterday it caused an air lock on the cold supply and I had to back fill the cold supply to get it working again.

There is no room for a bigger header tank and no room above the bathroom to increase the height of the tank either so that is out.

Could the cold supply to the sink and bath be plumbed directly into the mains? Would this help with the flow rate?

Any other suggestions would be grateful.

Thanks.
Sorry for length!!

 

[Rico99]

Hi there dj,

It sounds as though there is a couple of issues going on here.

Firstly, poor flow through shower head due to lack of "head" from cistern in loft and no great distance between the 2.

Secondly, it also sounds as though the wrong type of taps have been fitted.

Most modern taps these days are designed for high pressure system ie combi / unvented and as your system is gravity fed this would cause low flow as not enough pressure to open taps up.

With regards inscreasing flow. Check type of taps on "basin" and change to low pressure if needed.

You say you cannot increase height of current cistern in loft or fit bigger one, is there room to put in another similar size cistern and link the 2.
You would then be able run new hot & cold supply to bath through a pump in the airing cupboard.

Hope this helps anything else please ask.

Rico

 

[djheath]

You say you cannot increase height of current cistern in loft or fit bigger one, is there room to put in another similar size cistern and link the 2.
You would then be able run new hot & cold supply to bath through a pump in the airing cupboard.

Hope this helps anything else please ask.

Rico

Thanks for the reply.

There possible is enough room to have a similar sized tank further down the roof space and that would probably be the best solution.

I was just looking at pumps and notice this one seems just the kind of thing thats needed:
http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/triton-t450i-12-bar-single-1651-17447
However, it says only to be used on a mixer shower.

Would this be suitable to be plunbed in after the head tank feeding the basin and bath/shower mixer
The bath/shower tap looks like this:

But has a different head on it.

Thanks again.

 

[Rico99]

Hi,

That pump is only for single feed.

You need a one that pumps hot and cold.

http://tiny.cc/Ow0uJ

Rico

 

[Agile]

I had a bad experiences with a Triton pump that failed after five days and found the manufacturers very unhelpful.

I now always recommend that people use other makes.

Tony