how to tell your water pressure?

paul4798 · 13 March 2005 at 11:28PM

Hi there i am looking to buy new taps but most of the ones i like say the following:-

Minimum operating pressure of 1 bar for best performance.

I have gravity fed plumbing so am i likely to have the above pressure?

thanks

Paul

grumbler · 14 March 2005 at 12:27PM

1bar=10 meters of water. You are likely to have problems especially upstairs.
It is quite difficult to find low-pressure taps.
I bought taps from Bristan Rio range for low pressure from 0.2bar=2meters. They are quite expensive though. You can find information HERE . Try to shop around for better prices.

gromituk · 14 March 2005 at 2:13PM

These high pressure taps usually have an aerator in them. You can unscrew the end of the spout and remove the aerator, and then they'll work better at low pressure.

plumb1_2 · 14 March 2005 at 11:09PM

gromituk wrote:

These high pressure taps usually have an aerator in them. You can unscrew the end of the spout and remove the aerator, and then they'll work better at low pressure.

No they wont,buy ideal,armitage shanks,Bristan,good British makes,Most cheap taps are inported and work on higher pressures.

http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/1035-15126

gromituk · 15 March 2005 at 11:04AM

Excuse me? Yes they will. I have done it with several taps and a bath filler in my very own house.

You'll probably find that most of these so-called British makes are made in China now anyway. And when I needed to buy them they were stuck in the dark ages. You couldn't get them with ceramic valves.

Re your link: erm, "Xena" looks to be a nice British make, doesn't it? *confused*

I'd look at Screwfix for taps.

secretdancer · 15 March 2005 at 2:26PM

Sorry for butting in on this heated debate but I have a question with regard to ceramic disk taps!

I have Eon mixer taps installed in my bathroom, and as gromituk points out they have aerators fitted. The one problem I have is that they get very noisy when the flow is reduced - but are fine when flow is on full. I have tried with and without aerator as I thought this might be the cause of the noise, but am I right in assuming it is because the flow is too low and the tap is not designed for low flows?? Any ideas?

grumbler · 15 March 2005 at 3:35PM

gromituk wrote:

Excuse me? Yes they will. I have done it with several taps and a bath filler in my very own house.

Yes, they will, but it will take ages to fill a bath when using high-pressure bath-filler with low-pressure supply! It is not so important for basin tap though if you do not need strong flow.

gromituk wrote:

You couldn't get them with ceramic valves.

Bristan range that I recommended above does have modern ceramic valves.

gromituk · 15 March 2005 at 3:59PM

Read carefully and you'll see that I was talking about then, not now.

Anyway, regarding noise, I assume secretdancer that you have a combi boiler or other mains-fed device so that the water is at mains pressure? I am guessing that the noise is caused by the sharp profiles and hard surfaces you have on ceramic valves, compared with the relatively soft traditional washer and the smooth profile of the valve seat on an ordinary system. I'm not sure if there's anything you can do about it.

secretdancer · 15 March 2005 at 5:56PM

Yes, combi boiler. Cold is direct from mains and hot is obviously straight from the combi at near mains. Seems like an odd thing to design something that could potentially be so noisy? Do you think there is any way around it other than different taps?

gromituk · 15 March 2005 at 6:26PM

You can get pressure reducers - some cowboy plumber had put one in my house to feed a shower with mains cold and low pressure hot - tut tut. (He'd also teed off before the main stopc0ck [spelling changed to defeat idiotic censoring on this site] just to compound his errors.) The pressure reducer would be put in the rising main before it splits into hot and cold feeds, and would have to be set to be above the minimum pressure required by the boiler, but this is likely to be well below what you have at the moment. You would have to hope that the pressure reducer was quieter than the taps!

plumb1_2 · 15 March 2005 at 10:45PM

gromituk wrote:

You can get pressure reducers - some cowboy plumber had put one in my house to feed a shower with mains cold and low pressure hot - tut tut. (He'd also teed off before the main stopc0ck [spelling changed to defeat idiotic censoring on this site] just to compound his errors.) The pressure reducer would be put in the rising main before it splits into hot and cold feeds, and would have to be set to be above the minimum pressure required by the boiler, but this is likely to be well below what you have at the moment. You would have to hope that the pressure reducer was quieter than the taps!

And you let this cowboy plumber fitt the valve with all your knowlage?:D

how to tell your water pressure?

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