Hot Water Pressure

Flonglee

We have recently had a new bathroom fitted - whole thing gutted - total ovehaul.When we were quoted for the job, we were told that our system should be able to accommodate the new power shower that we wanted.Half way through the fitting, the fitter advised us that we'd need a pump for the shower as the hot water pressure would be inadequate. We'd never noticed a problem with the pressure before - in fact it had been pretty good!We had the pump fitted and it seems to work fine, but since the bathroom has been done, we've got next to no hot water pressure (from any hot taps in the house - To fill a bath used to take 5 mins... last count was 25!).We have a glowworm gas boiler that's about 20 years old. There's a separate hot water tank in one of the bedrooms, fed from a header tank in the loft. In order to fit the pump, the supply from the hot water tank was split off into two - one to the rest of the house and one to the shower pump.Long story short, the fitters are denying all responsibility! As the pressue has only dropped since they did their work, it has to be something they've done. Has anyone got any ideas what they could have done to affect the pressure so much? Or what they need to do to fix it?! We're insisting that they come out and fix it but we have no idea what the problems could be...

Cardew

Little confused here. You do mean a 'power shower' and not an electric shower?

A 'power shower' must have a pump, so if you were told that you did not need one - they were wrong or you misunderstood.

Modern taps use a smaller diameter pipe and that might be your problem.

I had a bathroom refitted - with a long pipe run from the Hot Water tank and had the same problem - the hot water to the sink and bath was a trickle. That said, the hot water to the other bathrooms and downstairs were not affected.

My solution was to have a pump fitted - similar to a power shower pump - which operates on demand.

Flonglee

It was definitely a power shower and we were told that as we have a gravity fed system there should be enough pressure.We've been told that the taps they fitted were designed to work with low pressure systems and the pressure has dropped in the kitchen too.My biggest issue is the fact that the hot water pressure was great before the bathroom was fitted... I'm reluctant to fork out for another pump to be fitted when there was no problem before they did their work!

thechippy

The hot supply to the shower pump should be taken from as near to the cylinder as possible and before the dhw take off point. Have they done this?
Is it possible for you to take a pic of the pump installation and post it up?

Fire_Fox

Put your complaint into writing (recorded delivery) to the tradesman who completed the work and give them a chance to put the work right.

lapat

with you having no pressure in the kitchen tap after the istallation has the plumber installed a isolation valve anywhere in the system. if so he may have installed it in the wrong way or may not have opened it properley. either way the issue seems to have been caused after the plumbing work so get him back to sort it out