Shower woes.

My shower is a shower of shit.

The pressure / flow is not high enough to maintain a working temperature so it keeps tripping out when you want to make it colder. Nearly every shower i spend half the time messing around with the temp control like someone trying to crack a safe, attempting to balance it at the point just before the trip kicks in where it's not scalding hot. And it seems like if anyone in the street opens a tap it's game over.

At the moment it's an electric shower fed directly from the mains CWS. There is a combi boiler but I serisuly doubt it's up to delivering a constant hot water supply since that is also fed from the same mains.

The pipework up to the property is all new, the stuff into the house and up to the first floor is Victoriana!

I don't think it would be cost effective to replace the mains on my side. I'm now looking at getting a cold water header tank in the loft (possibly raised right up on a platform- I reckon I could aceive a few metres of head if I mount it in the middle of the loft) and pumping down, or buying one of those all in one showers that pumps and running it directly off the mains with a backflow check and an isolation valve.

I've no idea which pump might be appropriate to feed a single shower (pumping either downhill from the loft or uphill from the bathroom mains, not decided yet). Would 2.5-3 metres of head (if achievable) be useful?

Any ideas?

Thanks

i got told by a plumber that salamander were the daddy of shower pumps.

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Try a freer flowing hose and showerhead before you go spending loads of money, it may be restricting the flow further. I have a Combi and Mira valve, no problems at all. my old combi was very temperamental with shower heads etc though but the latest one is fine.

I have had three different combi boilers in two different houses with a combination of bath tap mixer or proper shower valve and they have all performed perfectly, I ripped out a electric one in favour of a bath mixer tap in one house.

Monument Tools Mains Water Pressure Test Gauge | Screwfix.com

Get one of those and see what your cold water pressure supply is, I reckon it'll be more than enough (I can't find any data showing what pressure is needed)

Installed one in a house in London that used a pump from a swimming pool, depending on how the adjustable shower-head was set it could knock you flat on your arse or just about pin you to the wall. Had a bit of trouble with the shower-heads though, it blew the first 3 apart...

Well, you lot can laugh at this....

Tried to shut the mains off at the old brass Victorian shutoff tap. Got to about 4/5ths closed and the 'handle' (An allen key banged through the stem) sheared off. Ouch.

Thought I'd make hay whilst the.....water supply was fucked. So I opened the washing machine valve earlier up the pipe and set about cutting later down the pipe, figuring that the measly residual pressure would just go out the washing machine hose into a bucket. Clearly I do not know as much about water as I thought, because the second my hacksaw breached the pipe a massive jet of water hit me in the eye.

Cue much darting about to turn off the mains tap in my alleyway...

Quickly cut and fitted a T for my icemaker and turned the water back on (don't know if the neighbours are on the same tap, ho hum- they hate me anyway so fuck 'em) then went and fitted pipes to run the electric shower from the boiler HWS....my thinking being if the Combi boiler can provide enough hot water to provide a hot shower with the electric shower set on "Cold" then I can probably junk the electric shower and fit a thermostatic mixer...

And it can. So I'm bidding on a mixer type on ebay. But the mains pressure is still dire. So I'm going to have to fit a pump.

I've read about fitting a pump to the mains and it seems this is fine as long as the flow rate is low enough and thus it doesn't empty the mains too quickly, and as long as it is seperated from the mains by a shutoff valve and a backpressure check valve.

Oh, and I dremelled a small hole through the shutoff stem stub and ground down an allen key to fit through, then banged it in with a hammer. I managed to get the water back on but I never, ever want to have to shut the amins off at that point again! I'll have to fit another shutoff tap just above it...if that hadn't have opened I'd have had to call an actual plumber out, and I can't afford that!!!

You sound like SdF but with water.

If it's in any way mitigating, I fixed it this evening (I've been away with work).

NB I fixed it. So it works. And doesn't need fixing again. I fixed it myself.

Will yeh let me off now please? Such slurs!

Originally Posted by Mr Rooty Tooty

Well, you lot can laugh at this....

Tried to shut the mains off at the old brass Victorian shutoff tap. Got to about 4/5ths closed and the 'handle' (An allen key banged through the stem) sheared off. Ouch.

Thought I'd make hay whilst the.....water supply was fucked. So I opened the washing machine valve earlier up the pipe and set about cutting later down the pipe, figuring that the measly residual pressure would just go out the washing machine hose into a bucket. Clearly I do not know as much about water as I thought, because the second my hacksaw breached the pipe a massive jet of water hit me in the eye.

Cue much darting about to turn off the mains tap in my alleyway...

Quickly cut and fitted a T for my icemaker and turned the water back on (don't know if the neighbours are on the same tap, ho hum- they hate me anyway so fuck 'em) then went and fitted pipes to run the electric shower from the boiler HWS....my thinking being if the Combi boiler can provide enough hot water to provide a hot shower with the electric shower set on "Cold" then I can probably junk the electric shower and fit a thermostatic mixer...

And it can. So I'm bidding on a mixer type on ebay. But the mains pressure is still dire. So I'm going to have to fit a pump.

I've read about fitting a pump to the mains and it seems this is fine as long as the flow rate is low enough and thus it doesn't empty the mains too quickly, and as long as it is seperated from the mains by a shutoff valve and a backpressure check valve.

Oh, and I dremelled a small hole through the shutoff stem stub and ground down an allen key to fit through, then banged it in with a hammer. I managed to get the water back on but I never, ever want to have to shut the amins off at that point again! I'll have to fit another shutoff tap just above it...if that hadn't have opened I'd have had to call an actual plumber out, and I can't afford that!!!

If you just fit another stop cock above the grotty old victorian one, the pressure could finish off the old tap....