Combi boiler and water tank in 1st floor maisonette

lolly296

Hi,

I am hoping to get some advice; I live in a 1st floor maisonette. There is a combi boiler installed in the kitchen and there is also a cold water tank in the loft. The kitchen taps run off the mains supply. However the toilet, cold taps in the bath and bathroom sink run off the water tank supply but the hot water taps in the bathroom run from the mains. 

When I first moved into the property I was using the electric shower installed by the previous owners, however there were issues with pressure and temperature. I then switched to using the shower hose from the tap but could only use the hot tap (by turning the temperature down low on the boiler). Even with just using the hot taps to shower, I still have an issue with water pressure as the shower can suddenly go from full pressure to just a drip. My downstairs neighbours and 3 other homes are on the same mains supply. 

Can I get rid of the water tank and have all taps supplied by combi boiler? If this is possible what would be the rough costs?

How can I improve the issue with the water pressure? Will this be helped by converting all to mains or is the issue because of multiple households on the same mains supply?

Hope this makes sense. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Moss5

A shower must have hot and cold water supplied at equal pressure i.e. both mains or both tank pressure.

Here is one method of boosting your mains flow-rate: -

https://pumpexpress.co.uk/explaining-cold-water-accumulators/

Sounds like a single house has been converted to 4-apartments without upgrading the water supply?

Surely there should be 4-water meters and 4- stop-taps, but could the street supply cope? Why not seek advice from your water supplier.

If you cannot get improved supply, it may be worth installing a hot water storage tank, but do you have the room?

The water could be heated by a coil in the tank fed by the combi boiler (just imagine the coil is like another radiator). You would need a skilled heating tech to arrange pipes and controls.

The hot and cold to the bath could be arranged at tank pressure. You may need a twin impeller shower pump under the bath and the hot and cold tanks would need to be large enough to not run dry during one bath/shower.

Homer_home

Sounds like the mains cold feed wont be able to cope if you got rid of the storage tank and you would make things worse for yourself and your neighbours

You have a mains feed to your kitchen tap because water from a storage tank in the loft is not potable 


Simplest solution is to fit yourself a single impeller pump to your electric shower which will raise the pressure and give you a decent shower ( or get a power shower but they are expensive) however you would have to make sure your tank in the loft is large enough to cope with the volume of water you need to have a shower or you will run out of water halfway through your shower  

Jeepers_Creepers

Hi Lolly.

As said by others above.

To answer your Q directly, tho', if your incoming mains pressure and flow are adequate, then - yes - you can do without that cold tank and run everything directly off the mains. That will be far better, and also sort out your shower imbalance problems. Cost? Next to nothing - the cold mains pipe, which is already going to that cold tank, needs to be connected to the cold supply pipe that's coming out of the bottom of that tank and going to your house. The tank can then be removed if you want. 

What's an adequate supply and pressure? I'd suggest you need over 10 litres per minute at the very least, and ideally around 15 or above. As for pressure, this should hopefully be 2 bar and above. 

To measure flow is easy - stick a pan under your cold kitchen tap and turn it on full for 10 seconds. Measure the number of litres and times that by 6 to get litres-per-minute. Let us know what you get.

Pressure - that really needs a gauge, but perhaps you can describe what the cold flow from the kitchen cold tap is like - does it splash your pants when full on...?