Grundfos Home Booster - anyone experience of this?

macneil_2

I live in Yorkshire and let out my London flat to pay the rent - didn't sell because one day will go back and was terrified of rising London prices! It's an ex local authority 3rd floor flat in a Georgian terrace and the other flats are all still council flats.

There's no shower, only a very slow filling bath (used to take about 20 minutes to half an hour). The water pressure has always been really low, and British Gas charged me £3000 (!) to replace the old boiler because the flow was sometimes too low to fire it up. They said the new combi boiler was more sensitive so would fire up at low flow.

But seems like the flow has been falling. Thames Water say it's the council's responsibility to give us all individual supplies - because I'm at the top of the house there's no water by the time it gets up there, and there are more people living in the other floors now. The council have a management company who like to charge me money and save money, so they've said it's probably plumbing done in my house that caused the problem and they would investigate but it'd take months. My tenant has had NO hot water almost since he moved in, for nearly a month. I have to move now or lose him, which means losing nearly £750 a month rent.

I got a plumber to check the plumbing, British Gas checked and replaced parts on the already new boiler, BG said get a Grundfos Home Booster. My plumber fitted it yesterday by about 3pm and we waited and waited for it to work. Because I'm in the north, me & my plumber had to come home at about 8pm. It was still not working: the pressure had gone up to 2. By this time there was no one to call at Grundfos and now it's a bank holiday weekend and I really really promised my furious tenant some hot water finally (and have spent about £2000 on this Grundfos installation) and my husband goes to America to work for a year on Tuesday and I have to wait here and sort this out before I follow on with two babies. So we're all a bit hysterical and terrified. That's why this is so long, I just posted on the off chance that someone has an idea and a suggestion. It might be that the Grundfos takes a bit of time to start working. It might be that the plumber did it wrong - but the manual says 'nothing could be easier'. And the Grundfos Home Booster is SO EXPENSIVE I just thought it would work straight out of the box.

Thanks for reading if you made it all the way through, sorry for boring you, and please please help if you can.

EliteHeat

It sounds like it has been incorrectly installed or is faulty. If the pressure is currently reading 2, then this is approximately 30lbs per inch - quite a bit.

In any event, the system has an 8 litre expansion capability to cater for small demands, so even if the pump isn't working then you should at least have that.

I am trying the fathom the intelligence of someone who sits and waits for something to start working for 5 hours without calling the manufacturers support line.

I was under the impression that the water company were required by law to ensure that 9 litres of water under pressure of at least 1 bar could be delivered to every home. Surely they should be arguing the toss with the council and not you?

baldelectrician

Sounds to me (and maybe one of the CH guys here will confirm or deny this) that you need your own storage cistern in your flat and your combi coverted to a system combi with a storage cylinder

Your tenant will have 40-50 gallons of water on tap and there will not be any issues

Your plumber should be able to advise

DVardysShadow

If the pressure is 30psi as EliteHeat says, then you should have no problems - that is equivalent to having a storage tank about 6 stories higher. So it looks to me like you have some blockages in your system. As it is ex LA, I would expect to find iron pipework which may now be life expired dues to internal rust build up.

macneil_2

Thank you so much for the replies, very friendly to a new person!

I'll answer a couple of points to try to sound less like an idiot.

"I am trying the fathom the intelligence of someone who sits and waits for something to start working for 5 hours without calling the manufacturers support line."

Had to wait for it to fill and there is so little water we thought we'd give it an hour or so. Then we called the manufacturer who said it took 2-3 hours first time around, and they closed at 5pm.

"I was under the impression that the water company were required by law to ensure that 9 litres of water under pressure of at least 1 bar could be delivered to every home. Surely they should be arguing the toss with the council and not you?"

Thames say they only have to deliver 1 bar to every water supply - there's one water supply to this entire 4 flat house because regulations only said 1 water supply per flat after 1998, so Thames wash their hands of it.

Tenant said he has SOME water today, so I guess waiting made a difference, but it was a much longer wait than expected. This is the first water he's had in a month, so he's a bit happier. I'll have to phone tomorrow to see how it's getting on. Thank you so much for the replies!

EliteHeat

If it takes more than 5 hours to fill a 200 litre vessel then that is terrible - far less than 1 litre per minute.

Even if your new system works and provides a reasonable 20 litres per minute, then after 1 ten minute shower the tenant wont be able to do the dishes, flush the toilet etc for exactly how long?

Personally I would consider your property to be uninhabitable if this is true.