Shower and low pressure

needahol

Hi

I wonder if anyone can offer any assistance with my query

I recently had a shower installed from scratch and, upon completion of the installation, the electrician advised the shower was not working properly (it was new).

I therefore asked the manufacturer to check the shower (in my home) but I am struggling to understand his findings (on account that I have no clue about such things)

He stated that the shower is not faulty in any way but that the water pressure meant it was incapable of heating up and giving a good flow. He attributed this to the fact that the shower has been installed from a gravity something (tank?) which is in the loft, this gravity system also feeds the bath taps.

What I am unclear on is whether there is anything I can do to remedy this? I also have a water cylinder in the airing cupboard so is it possible to ask a plumber to feed the shower from here instead and would that remedy the problem?

I have googled and saw info re shower system being too close to the water source (which I assume mine is). I assume raising the tank would be a big, expensive job?

Or is it possible to buy a booster of some type as I've seen those mentioned as well.

Any help would be appreciated as at the minute I've got a shower on the wall that I'll never be able to use

The shower is a Triton T80Z FF

TIA

southcoastrgi

the problem is simple this is an electric shower & as such it should be connected into the cold MAIN not fed from the roof tank, so the feed needs to be swapped in the roof or where ever it has been connected to, tbh if your installer didn't know this god only knows what else he has done wrong

ListysDad

who installed it, an electrician or a plumber?

ListysDad

Hmm. I'm a tad thick so I want to make sure I'm getting this.

You paid a man to do a job. He screwed it up. You now want to pay for that same job again.

Sorry, but get him to sort it out. Or, send me a bundle of fivers and I'll set fire to them for you - less a commission!

tlh858

The only answer if you want to keep the shower, is to connect it to the cold water main.
Depending on the pipe layout in your house this could be very easy, or next to impossible.

Raising the tank will do nothing, as electric showers require a pressure of at least 1bar to operate, which is equivalent to your cold water tank being at least 10 METERS above the shower head - obviously this is impossible.

Pumped electric showers are available, although they are not common, they are expensive and usually noisy as well.

The other option is to have a mixer shower installed on your existing hot & cold supplies, with possibly a booster pump.

southcoastrgi

tlh858 wrote: »

Pumped electric showers are available, although they are not common, they are expensive and usually noisy as well

A pumped electric shower isn't an electric shower in the way the OP is talking about, an electric shower is one that heats the water as it goes through the shower, a pumped electric shower is just a mixer valve connected to the hot & cold supplies with a pump built in to improve the pressure.

If you don't trust the "recommended" sparkie to know what he is doing with regard to the plumbing then get a plumber in to do the plumbing correctly & take his bill off of the sparkies bill, however the correct way of doing it would be to speak to the sparkie & tell him he has connected the shower into the wrong pipe & if he can't change it then does he know a plumber that could do it of course at the spakies expence.

ListysDad

Sorry to disagree Keith but I've just removed a pumped proper electric shower! I was a dolphin and rather oddly used a 18gal CWS tank to feed single ended pump to feed a 10kw electric shower! In my opinion an excuse to up the ante!

southcoastrgi

ListysDad wrote: »

Sorry to disagree Keith but I've just removed a pumped proper electric shower! I was a dolphin and rather oddly used a 18gal CWS tank to feed single ended pump to feed a 10kw electric shower! In my opinion an excuse to up the ante!

well i stand corrected, however i don't think this was what tlh858 was re-fering to, plus this is just a way of increasing the mains supply pressure without actually pumping the mains which of course as we all know is illegal if the pump is designed to pump over a certain flow rate.

ListysDad

southcoastrgi wrote: »

well i stand corrected, however i don't think this was what tlh858 was re-fering to, plus this is just a way of increasing the mains supply pressure without actually pumping the mains which of course as we all know is illegal if the pump is designed to pump over a certain flow rate.

I agree. But it is a legitimate way of feeding one and gets over low flo issues if general pressure is a problem - but only for as long as the tanks got water!

needahol

Thank you all, much appreciated. I'll speak to the electrician asap about putting this right by connecting to the cold water main

keystone

needahol wrote: »

Thank you all, much appreciated. I'll speak to the electrician asap about putting this right by connecting to the cold water main

and whilst you are about it then give him a lesson in how to read. The MIs for the shower would have said ONLY connect to a cold mains pressure supply.

And yes the riser for the roof tanks should pass through the airing cupboard as its normally the easiest route up there and if it doesn't then drop a new pipe down from it because it wil be up there to feed the tanks.

Pumping it is dense.

Cheers