Gravity shower - reduction in pressure

Plumbers_Shop_Lee

Can you post a picture of the new shower valve? I would expect Roman just to make the enclosure rather than the mixer shower. It could be the new valve isn't suited to gravity supplies for a number of reasons

JulieM

Female logic - could the problem be the new shower head? Any chance you've kept the old shower head and if so, can you screw it on to the new hose and see how the water flow compares. We replaced our shower head and it reduced the flow to a trickle so we had to put the tatty old shower head back on.

veryintrigued

Apologies for the misinformation.

The valve is Bristan - once I got my specs on its written horizonatally across it.

I've had a good look through their catalogue and this is the one that looks just like it:

http://www.tapoutlet.co.uk/frenzy-thermostatic-surface-mounted-bar-shower-valve.html

I've taken the hose off and see it has a metal gauze filter (in a rubber washer ring) between hose and shower head. I've taken the gauze out (and put the washer back in) - is this wise? I will have a test drive tomorrow but it still doesnt seem to be hugely powerful.

I note that the operators instructions seem to state 5m is needed between cold water. Not sure thats the case - certainly not 5m between hot water tank in loft.

Thanks so far all

keystone

You most certainly have a flow rate problem and not a pressure problem. Your new shower is more restrictive to flow than the old one. What was the old one. I suspect that the old one was bordering on low showering performance anyway. I think you need a pump to get any sort of decent shower whether it be your old shower or your new one.

Cheers

Plumbers_Shop_Lee

the data sheet on that shower suggests at 0.5 bar pressure you will get 7.7 lpm which to be honest is pretty poor although as Keystone says the only way you'll increase that is to pump the supplies. just out of interest what is the distance from the base of the cold water storage tank to the head of the shower (this needs to be a minimum of 5m to attain 0.5bar). Bristan claim this to be suitable for all system types I really dont think it is, for example the Mira coda will operate at 0.1 bar which is far better suited to your system

Mr_Ted

:)In agreement with some of the above, as it would appear you do not have enough head(keep it clean) for required flow, and that a pump is the probable solution;)

I would also check if you have a dedicated cold feed to the shower from the CWS tank and that the hot feed is from a dedicated tapping from the cylinder also, if not it should have one for a pump so that you have equal supply head and flow for the pump to work on:)

I would also advise putting the gauze filters back in;)

veryintrigued

Thanks again for the repsonses.

Plan for this evening is to get into the loft and see how the shower is fed and also measure how long between the drops in piping to the shower and the tanks.

Cheers again so far.

diywhynot

Your installer would be able to answer your queries. Photos?

veryintrigued

diywhynot wrote: »

Your installer would be able to answer your queries. Photos?

See link above (its the same as any photo) - unless youre keen to see out mermaid board?

SuzieSue

We had a similar problem when our shower was replaced (very disappointing when you've paid all that money for a new shower and the result is worse than the old one).

We were going to get a pump, but I thought that I would try a different shower head and got this one:

Euphoria Mono Hand Showerhead:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grohe-27224-Euphoria-Hand-Shower/dp/B005OQ2RTM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kh_1

It made such a difference that we didn' bother with a pump.