"armitageshanks" wrote in message
om...
Hi,
Just looking for some advice.
I've recently installed a Victorian style mixer shower onto my bath.
I'm not keen to change it to a Power/Electric shower as I find the
Mixer Shower more aesthetically pleasing.
Problem is that the hot water pressure is poor. The Hot water tank is
on the same floor as the bathroom, with the cold water tank being in
the loft. Obviously the cold water pressure is fine.
What options are available to me (in the UK) to increase the pressure?
Do I raise the hot water tank into the loft, buy some type of pump,
increase pipe size..........Basically I would want the most reliable
and efficient way of increasing the water pressure.
Advice would be vastly appreciated

Firstly, the hot water tank will be fed from the tank in the loft and the
hot water will be at the presssure corresponding to the hight of the loft
tank (when there's no flow). If there is a marked difference between the hot
and the cold pressure when running, either:

1. You are wrong about the cold water coming from the tank and it comes from
the mains.
2. There is something sertiously wrong with the hot water pipework that is
restricting the flow.

Had the pressures been equal (both fed from the header tank with no
restrictions, the best way would have been to fit a twin-impeller pump to
the bath feeds (noisy but effective). As they do not appear to be, you will
have to recheck the arrangements to determine what they really are and what
state they are in. In any case, if you wish to keep your new shower on your
bath and want the pressure, you will have to go to a pumped system. While
this might work OK with mains cold water, I suspect mains pressure would be
too high for it and, for safety reasons, pumped showers should take their
cold separately of the loft tank, at a lower point than the outlet which
feeds the hot water system. This last is so that, if the header tank
empties, the hot runs out first and you get frozen, not scalded, and it's a
reasonably failsafe system.

It wont be simple to change over to a pumped system but you asked for
"reliable and efficient" which they are (well my first pump lasted about 10
years).

If you are prepared to dump the new shower which runs off the bath mixer,
the options open up a bit more - everything from venturi showers (no
experience) to refitting the entire hot water system and putting in a combi
(I will let others argue that one!).


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)