Shower has no power, options?

[mrfog]

Hi

Having just moved into a new house we have discovered that the shower has no power at all. It is a mixer that was installed seperately. After looking in the loft I can see that the hot water comes from the airing cupboard tank and the cold water is just gravity fed from the bottom of the tank in the loft. So my question is can I move the cold water pipe from the tank to a mains feed to get some pressure (why did the installer not do this anyway?) or do I need to fork out for an in line pump instead?

Any help greatly appreciated.

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moderator

please see forum rules 1a (your "bump" post has been removed)

 

[Softus]

The good news is that you could take a cold feed from the mains, but the bad news is that you would almost certainly need to change the mixer valve.

Your basic choices would be to install a pressure reducing device, or replace the valve with a venturi type of valve, which is spefically designed for cold mains and uses the extra mains flow to boost the tank-fed hot flow. Iin either case you would need to fit a check valve.

Or, you can keep your existing feeds and install a separate shower pump.

 

[mrfog]

Thank you.
When you say a seperate shower pump do you mean an inline pump in the loft that cuts into the cold? These have automatic flow switches yes?

 

[Softus]

Thank you.
When you say a seperate shower pump do you mean an inline pump in the loft that cuts into the cold? These have automatic flow switches yes?

Yes and no - I mean one that cuts into the cold AND the hot.

They do indeed have flow switches - I suppose you could call them automatic