Firstly sorry if this is a repeat post, have looked in the forum but cant find one.
I have recently installed two power showers into my bathroom and adjacent en suite. The installation is an unusual one and doesnt follow the normal orthodox ways.
Basically because of restrictions to pipes and working areas and after talking to local plumbers I decided to adopt the following installation:
The showers have a direct cold feed of the mains cold water (this is not pumped) and a feed of the hot water tank, which passes directly from the tank straight into a pump and out out again. The tank is on the same level floor as the showers meaning that the second level of the house has a pressurised hot watersystem, so even the hot sink taps have pressure.
Because of changes in cold mains pressure, and incase someone runs taps etc etc both mains cold feed, and pressurized hot feed are run through a pressure equalizer, after exiting the equalizer the pipes are split into two (by t-joint) where they each run to their respective showers and mixer units, at equal pressures. The pump is 'man' enough to cope with the length of pipes and two showers (although it is very unlikely that both will be used at the same time)
The pressurized hot water system works fine, you turn on bath taps, or sink taps, the pump sense a drop in flow rate so kicks in correctly.
The showers will work fine when the thermostatic mixer is set to cold, with good pressure. However when set to hot the showers will not run properly and the pump will not kick in.
After investigating if you run the hot water sink tap then the shower will kick in fine and the pump react giving a good pressured shower. I have checked the displacement head height and the pump reccommends a minimum of 100mm, when in fact there is over a foot of head height.
After further investigating I found that if you branch the equalizer (remove the qualizer and directly branch the gaps with pipe) then the showers also work fine, with the pump kicking in.
I thought it may be that the water in the tank is not hot enough, so adjusted the settigs and set the tank to its maximum temperature settings (which is hot!!) but still the same.
I cannot figure out why, when the hot taps on the sink are run, that the pump should then sense a drop in pressure when the shower is turned on, and not before. It must be something to do with the equalizer, perhaps the fact that, there is mains cold in and only normal hot in (although this should be pressurised and remain pressured until someone releases it, when the pump should then kick in??) that perhaps the equalization unit is restricting flow to the shower, and then when released the pipe from the equalizer is being emptied and then some kind of delay in the equalizer sorting out pressures again??
Perhaps it is also important to say that there is a very short delay with the pump kicking in anyway. when you run a hot tap in the sink or bath, the pump wont ick in for maybe 2/3 seconds.
Any thoughts at all would be very grateful!! I know that this is a strange combination and installation before people point out to me.
Cheers
A very confused! Chris
I have recently installed two power showers into my bathroom and adjacent en suite. The installation is an unusual one and doesnt follow the normal orthodox ways.
Basically because of restrictions to pipes and working areas and after talking to local plumbers I decided to adopt the following installation:
The showers have a direct cold feed of the mains cold water (this is not pumped) and a feed of the hot water tank, which passes directly from the tank straight into a pump and out out again. The tank is on the same level floor as the showers meaning that the second level of the house has a pressurised hot watersystem, so even the hot sink taps have pressure.
Because of changes in cold mains pressure, and incase someone runs taps etc etc both mains cold feed, and pressurized hot feed are run through a pressure equalizer, after exiting the equalizer the pipes are split into two (by t-joint) where they each run to their respective showers and mixer units, at equal pressures. The pump is 'man' enough to cope with the length of pipes and two showers (although it is very unlikely that both will be used at the same time)
The pressurized hot water system works fine, you turn on bath taps, or sink taps, the pump sense a drop in flow rate so kicks in correctly.
The showers will work fine when the thermostatic mixer is set to cold, with good pressure. However when set to hot the showers will not run properly and the pump will not kick in.
After investigating if you run the hot water sink tap then the shower will kick in fine and the pump react giving a good pressured shower. I have checked the displacement head height and the pump reccommends a minimum of 100mm, when in fact there is over a foot of head height.
After further investigating I found that if you branch the equalizer (remove the qualizer and directly branch the gaps with pipe) then the showers also work fine, with the pump kicking in.
I thought it may be that the water in the tank is not hot enough, so adjusted the settigs and set the tank to its maximum temperature settings (which is hot!!) but still the same.
I cannot figure out why, when the hot taps on the sink are run, that the pump should then sense a drop in pressure when the shower is turned on, and not before. It must be something to do with the equalizer, perhaps the fact that, there is mains cold in and only normal hot in (although this should be pressurised and remain pressured until someone releases it, when the pump should then kick in??) that perhaps the equalization unit is restricting flow to the shower, and then when released the pipe from the equalizer is being emptied and then some kind of delay in the equalizer sorting out pressures again??
Perhaps it is also important to say that there is a very short delay with the pump kicking in anyway. when you run a hot tap in the sink or bath, the pump wont ick in for maybe 2/3 seconds.
Any thoughts at all would be very grateful!! I know that this is a strange combination and installation before people point out to me.
Cheers
A very confused! Chris