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Right, still not that happy with my shower pressure! I've had a 38cdi fitted (Worchester Bosch) and its rated to do up to 16lm for hot water. I think the problem is that the shower is on the 3rd floor and the boiler is the ground floor so the head of water is quite large?
I've been looking online and I can't see a booster that will help get the water pressure up on the 3rd floor on the hot. Salamander do a "homeboost" but that just boosts the incoming mains water - which I dont need as its powerful (the tap downstairs open is easyyyy 16lm)
I've hit a road block though - I'd have thought a booster that sat inline on the hot feed to the shower that was set at say 15lm would be a device that exists? IE you set it just below the max capable of the boiler or known water supply to aid it's travel up 3 floors?
I guess the other option is to go for a tank in the loft but I really would prefer not to
how is the cold water pressure and flow in the bathroom? the hot should be the same from a combi. Its all under mains pressure.
maybe a restricted pipe?
Sounds a bit odd
if you house is 3 floors say 3 m per floor you would need .9 bar to get a trickle out the tap by the sounds of it you have that
Often to the shower inlets there are flow restrictions say 7 Lpm per side
two reasons for this the first is so one shower doesn’t hog all the flow say two showers one on the first floor and one on the second or third floor
the second is some shower trays won’t cope with 14 lpm especially when mixed with soap and other stuff
Are you confusing pressure and flow?
If it only comes out as a dribble it can still be high pressure but poor flow.
The two can have very different solutions.
There are plenty of pumps that can increase the pressure of the hot an cold water:
For instance:
[url] https://www.screwfix.com/p/stuart-turner-monsoon-s-positive-head-twin-shower-pump-3-0bar/42415 [/url]
I turned a rubbish shower into a good one with an ecocamel shower head. Try one of those before anything else.
In line booster is contrary to water regs and probably see you showering in paraquat one day
Is there a basin or bath? What's the flow like on them? If they are poor, how long before hot water comes through? Does the water come through as hot as elsewhere?
Not allowed to pump the water main over 12 litres per minute.
You need to get a bit of an understanding of how your system works to diagnose the problem. Let me explain, but I won’t be able to explain everything.
Your problem is a lack of shower flow. The flow at your shower will depend on a few things
you have a combi boiler, so that’s nice and simple and a good starting point - you will have mains pressure cold and mains pressure hot at the shower. (Would be more complex to work out with water tanks, system boilers etc).
Your boiler is capable of heating water for a 16 l/m outlet. 16 l/m is plenty for a good shower And you are clearly getting much less than this, but it’s not the boilers fault.
The flow at the shower will depend on the pressure at the shower, and the model of shower you have. The pressure at the shower will be whatever your incoming mains pressure is, minus 9m or so of head (which is 0.9 bar as mentioned above) minus a bit of loss through the plumbing which will be fairly considerable if in 15mm or not too bad if in 22mm pipe.
You therefore need to find out if a) you have poor pressure at the top floor due to either low mains pressure (combined with 0.9 bar head loss) or a blockage or b) you have adequate pressure at the top floor but a shower model that delivers poor flow at this pressure.
You can either have the pressure investigated by a plumber (potentially diy able with tools and skill) or start by looking at what shower model you have and making some estimations. What you got?
So one more thing, a pump would up the pressure, hopefully allowing you to actually achieve a flow of 12 l/m at the shower head and therefore not break any regs, but there might be a better solution that hits the root cause.
Goldfish is getting there but you also need to check flow at your incoming supply. Flow is dependant on pipe size too as it is mentioned if you’ve only got 15mm pipe from the combi through the whole house flow will be poor, in fact if the combi is supplied with 15mm pipe flow may be poor. But also remember there is probably a flow restrictor in the boiler.
This may be blocked or possibly the wrong size.
Some showers have various flow restritors fitted to them too, check they are correct.
one other thing, is the flow poor at temperature? In other words to get it to a useable temperature you have to reduce the flow?
If that is the case then it could be that the heat loss on the long run of pipe is too great, it could be uninsulated or run touching the cold pipe taking all the heat from it.
17.2 litres/min is the absolute maximum flow rate you'll get from it. Check you're getting that from the tap in the bathroom with the boiler off before looking elsewhere. Could be the mixer valve in the shower. Or the boiler might not be set to full whack when it was commissioned.
Get whoever put it in to come back...
The oither thing to remember is the 16l flow is only at a 40 degree lift in temp IIRC so incoming water at tis time of year will be around 5 degrees? so to get 16l a min you will only get 45 degrees coming out of the boiler. If you have the water temp at 60 degrees you will get less than 16l flow
Ok - got an ecocamel shower head and it makes the shower "ok" but noisy - I'm guessing it's a pressure issue but need to work out why as the cold in the sink near when the mains comes in is crazy powerful but all other sinks arent so I'm going to assume it's a mix of joints or small pipes causing the issue. I may just run a 22mm pipe directly to the shower to make it better before buying a pressure pump as a last resort