Why would decorating the bathroom stop my shower from workin

[katy may]

In October I had a shower that had great pressure and had scalding hot water. (It's a Mira shower and is not a power shower. The boiler is a Sime 80C Combi). Then I had the shower cubicle taken out, the corner bath removed and the sink removed. I had the bath put where the shower cubicle was and the sink installed where the bath was so now I have an over the bath shower. (Also had towel heater radiator istalled).The order of the pipework hasn't changed and the shower pipework wasn't touched. This has taken three months and the final touches were installing the shower head/hose and screen. But DISASTER!!

Now, I can't get more than a tepid shower. The plumber (my dad, trained plumber but retired now) says the water pressure is too high for the boiler to heat up the amount of water going through - but why would this happen when it was fine before? He suggested that fiddling around had increased the flow to the shower but I can' see why. The only other thing that has changed is that the water pressure in the boiler istself was below 1 bar when the heating was on but now it's up to 2 as my dad topped it up.

I'm desperate for a shower - can anyone help?

 

[pannierstan]

It might be possible that when other pipes were altered that debris has travelled into the pipes supplying the shower.
Take the headset off the hose and then turn the shower from fully cold to fully hot.
Leave at fully hot to see if it does actually get hot. Keep turning from full hot to full cold.
Depending on the shower it may have a thermostat that is getting stuck.
Is there a big difference in the water pressure between full hot and full cold.

Stan

 

[esra_ptrap]

Is the flow from the shower more now than before or the same i.e. Is it more powerful?

 

[kevplumb]

inlet filters

 

[katy may]

That was so quick, thank you.

Kev - think the pressure is too good for the inlet filters to be the fault

esra_ptrap - the flow from the shower seems to be the same - however, it's been three months since i've had a shower and it's a different shower head so it's possible it's slightly higher.

pannierstan - there's no thermostat on the shower and apparently too much pressure for any debris to have got in. i've turned the water temp right up and the temperature on full hot is no about the same temp as a warm swimming pool - I wouldn't want to have a shower in that (but leave it a few more days and I may well be tempted!). there is slightly more pressure when on full cold, but not a big difference.

I had the thermostatic valve replaced on the boiler last year (almost to the day!) when i had a problem with the shower but then it just gave out cold water on random occasions.

 

[esra_ptrap]

It's possible that there are isolation valves on the shower hot feed which were partially closed before to reduce the outlet flow to let the boiler cope which are now fully open.

Just a thought and probably not a great one at that

 

[gigz]

Is the water hot at the taps ?

 

[katy may]

gigz - water scalding at taps, although there has always been a need to have the hot taps running slowly in order to get it hot, if running too fast then the water is luke warm. Up until now the shower has never been a problem.

esra_ptrap

Sounds feasible. My dad reckoned that I'd need to either get the water flow restricted in the boiler or at the stopcock and then followed that up with the reassuring comment that he had never dealt with combi boilers before and had no idea what he was talking about!

Thanks for help. really appreciate it.

 

[Lee-King]

Sounds like you need a pressure reducing valve:



Get your plumber to test the flow rate of the mains water.

 

[katy may]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. Have plumber coming soon to install pressure reducing valve.

 

[pannierstan]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. Have plumber coming soon to install pressure reducing valve.

Before you spend that money make sure he checks the boiler against the manufacturers instructions for flow rate,gas pressures and temperature rise.

Even the worst combi should do about 8 litres/min at 55 deg. If you are not getting that then could be calorifier that is scaled