I have recently fitted a new shower in my upstairs bathroom.
Previously we had an existing shower which appears to run off gravity, there is a cold feed from the tank and the hot from the sylinder which runs across under the floor to the existing shower, to a mixer tap and then to the shower head.
Unfortunately the shower tray has recently split, it looks quite cheap and old so no surprise i guess.
We have a new shower cubical which has now been installed in the opposite corner where there was a bath that was recently taken out.
For the new shower we extended the hot and cold supply which originaly fed the bath, to the back wall and then ran that along to the corner of the room for the shower. Pipework to the bath was 22mm, it has been extended in 15mm.
Between the point where we connected the old pipework to the new and where the shower is installed, we have teed off both hot and cold pipes and fitted a new sink. The sink works perfectly fine.
However the shower also works but the pressure is not what you would consider good enough to have a satisfactory shower in a satisfactory time!
Having been to a plumbers merchants, they suggested that the pipe work to the shower would benefit from being seperated from all other outlets, by teeing off the cold supply coming down from the loft tank and installing a surrey flange on the cylinder, which i will now try. He reckoned that could improve the situation by up to 50%... if it didn't then we would need to install a pump on this seperate shower supply.
What i don't understand is that my current shower works perfectly fine with a good pressure/flow of water.
The guy thought that maybe the existing shower had its own independant supply, as above, which could be the reason.
But having exposed the pipework there are two 22mm pipes for hot and cold that run to the shower with connections off for a previous sink (prior to it being moved as explained above), connections for the pipework that fed old bath (which now feeds the new shower and sink) and also these pipes appear to extend to supply the downstair sink.
So in effect the existing shower is not on a seperate supply, but still works fine without the aid of a pump.
It was suggested that the problem with the new shower could be that the new unit was foreign, which would therefore be made to run off mains pressure....?
Note: the shower unit was purchased in holland a few years ago and was given to us by my girlfriends dad. he has installed 2 exactly the same units in his place, but has a direct fed system via a combi boiler.
So ultimately i have two questions...
If i seperate the pipe work so the shower has an independant supply am i likely to see an increase in performance?
am i likely to require a pump?
sorry for the long descriptive message.
Previously we had an existing shower which appears to run off gravity, there is a cold feed from the tank and the hot from the sylinder which runs across under the floor to the existing shower, to a mixer tap and then to the shower head.
Unfortunately the shower tray has recently split, it looks quite cheap and old so no surprise i guess.
We have a new shower cubical which has now been installed in the opposite corner where there was a bath that was recently taken out.
For the new shower we extended the hot and cold supply which originaly fed the bath, to the back wall and then ran that along to the corner of the room for the shower. Pipework to the bath was 22mm, it has been extended in 15mm.
Between the point where we connected the old pipework to the new and where the shower is installed, we have teed off both hot and cold pipes and fitted a new sink. The sink works perfectly fine.
However the shower also works but the pressure is not what you would consider good enough to have a satisfactory shower in a satisfactory time!
Having been to a plumbers merchants, they suggested that the pipe work to the shower would benefit from being seperated from all other outlets, by teeing off the cold supply coming down from the loft tank and installing a surrey flange on the cylinder, which i will now try. He reckoned that could improve the situation by up to 50%... if it didn't then we would need to install a pump on this seperate shower supply.
What i don't understand is that my current shower works perfectly fine with a good pressure/flow of water.
The guy thought that maybe the existing shower had its own independant supply, as above, which could be the reason.
But having exposed the pipework there are two 22mm pipes for hot and cold that run to the shower with connections off for a previous sink (prior to it being moved as explained above), connections for the pipework that fed old bath (which now feeds the new shower and sink) and also these pipes appear to extend to supply the downstair sink.
So in effect the existing shower is not on a seperate supply, but still works fine without the aid of a pump.
It was suggested that the problem with the new shower could be that the new unit was foreign, which would therefore be made to run off mains pressure....?
Note: the shower unit was purchased in holland a few years ago and was given to us by my girlfriends dad. he has installed 2 exactly the same units in his place, but has a direct fed system via a combi boiler.
So ultimately i have two questions...
If i seperate the pipe work so the shower has an independant supply am i likely to see an increase in performance?
am i likely to require a pump?
sorry for the long descriptive message.
