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We had our vented hot water tank replaced after it reached the end of its natural life (leaking worse than a Conservative minister).
Now the power shower has lost pressure, spends time pumping air, and makes a horrific and expensive-sounding pulsing noise.
The power shower is fed from the feed at the top of the hot water tank but *not* any kind of flange - it just comes off the main feed (after a couple of 90 degree bends).
Meanwhile, there's what I assume is either a flange for the shower, or a secondary feed, about 30cm down from the top of the tank.
I'm wondering if I could just reroute the power shower feed to that?
Yes, you can fit it to the lower flanges, but, the water will be cooler there.
Most shower pumps do say they can be fed from the top outgoing pipe of the tank, but it isnt the best route for the pump, and adding extra elbows will slow down the flow.
It sounds like the header tank cant keep up with the emptying hot water tank. Maybe the old tank had a spigot internally, so the water was picked up from around 50mm below the top of the tank, and the new one takes it straight from the top, thus enabling some air to be drawn in if the header cant keep up.
A dedicated flange/output for the pump is always the best solution.
I'm fairly sure the old tank didn't have any kind of spigot at the top.
The shower is plumbed in right next to the pipe to the vent, so I can't help wondering if it's pulling water from there, which of course just has air at the other end.
Anyway, my son, who is frankly quite amazing, persuaded me after looking at the plumbing that whatever we did was going to be better than what was already there.
We're about to find out if he's right.
The description sounds like the sound my shower makes when it needs bled, often if the system has been drained.
I need to turn the power off, take the shower head off and lower it, then let water flow through the hole system till bubbles stop. I have a rubber valve thing I can press to let this happen. Can you do similar?
How far below the the top of the cylinder is the pump? If you want to keep it feeding from the top try to get the pump as low as possible
Pump is at the same height as the bottom of the cylinder (it's one of those external pumps). No amount of bleeding helped when I tried.
Anyway, it's now much happier!
I would have spent forever searching internet forums before doing anything; my son just got and did it, but it required a bit of expert soldering from the old man to finish it all off.
A joint effort!