Hi,

I've got a problem with my 1st floor shower. It's an in-bath, shower head
on flexible hose
connected to the bath mixer taps type affair. House built in 1990, all
original plumbing -
conventional setup for that era i.e. stored cold water tank in loft, HW
cylinder in airing
cupboard on 1st floor. The shower in question is gravity fed from pipes
leading from the
airing cupboard. The problem is the appauling flow rate of both HW and CW,
but
especially CW through the bath mixer taps. Even with the shower turned off
the CW
output from the bath taps is pathetic, the CW output from the wash basin in
the same
room as the shower is substantially better as is the performance of another
shower (also
gravity fed) in an en-suite of a different room on the same floor. My numero
uno culprit
for the poor flow is the non-return valves (check valves) fitted just before
the bath
mixer taps. The picture below shows the scene with the bath front panel
removed.
The two pipes feed the HW/CW bath mixer taps and the two valves are
presumably
the two check valves ?

http://www.knownentity.com/pics/bath/bath_valves.jpg

I guess the check valves are there due to water regs required when a shower
head
on a flexible lead is used in a bath environment with the potential for
drawing
contaminated water back into the house water tanks/supply.

So, what to do.......

I was thinking of something along the following:-

1. Try to prove that it's the check valves which are responsible for the
poor flow by
measuring the CW flow with valve in place, removing valve and then measuring
the
new flow rate.
2. If the flow rate differences are substantial then remove both check
valves and
replace the flexible hose shower with a fixed head unit. I was thinking of
the following
retro-fit unit from Screwfix :-

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/...01187&id=64439

Presumably as the shower head would then be fixed and so couldn't be
submerged
in contaminated bath water then I'm OK regarding water regs with removing
the
check valves ?

Things I'm not too confident about:-

Removing the check valves and fitting a new connector from the pipe to the
tap.
Presumably the bit of the supply pipes where the check valve compression
olive
has bitten will not be reusable for fitting a new connector and I'll have to
cut away
some pipe and either fit a new compression joint to a fresh bit of pipe ?

Any comments, suggestions ?

Andy.