Shower nightmare All aspects of plumbing questions and answers, help, tips and information

[Haywood]

Long story so sit back and enjoy, I hope.

Recently purchased Revitalise shower enclosure and tray from B&Q, the salesman mentioned that it might need a pump depending on water pressure but the plumber who fits it would be able to tell me.

Got a plumber and he said the water pressure was fine, connected the shower, sink and toilet bowl, then the problems started, I will called the plumber and his mate Roy & Trigger for reference purposes.

We didn't use the shower straight away as we wanted to tile the bathroom and after a couple of days decided that we should make sure it was working properly.

Turned on the shower and the pressure seemed fine but the water was cold, turned the handle to hot only to find the water slow down to a trickle but it was really hot.

Thought we only needed to fiddle with the mix to get the right temperature, no chance, either stone cold and pressure great or really hot and at a trickle is all we could get.

We noticed however that the tray was really slow to empty and we could not keep the shower on for more than 30 seconds.
We thought we had somehow blocked the pipe with tile adhesive or grout but found out after plunging for half an hour and a bottle of drain cleaner that there was a piece of carpet in the pipe.

The plumber had placed the carpet in the pipe to stop any water leaking our during fitting the tray, very strange indeed.
Called Roy and he returned, removed the carpet from the pipe and blamed his workmate Trigger, still insited the water pressure was fine.

I wasn't present when Roy called back or he would not have left without fixing the shower, my wife decided it was safer for Roy not to be called back and to call a real plumber.

The next plumber wanted to install new pipes over my newly tiled wall and a pump right next to the shower but could not be sure this would solve the problem, so spend £500 and take pot luck whether it works or not.

Decided it was time to find out a little more about pumps and things and to try and find a plumber who wasn't a member of the national rodeo association.
Called about twenty numbers, got mostly answer machines or no answer at all, one call back but useless.

Went onto B&Q website only to find out they offer a fitting service and wondered why we hadn't been offered this option when buying, we would have jumped at it.

Decided to call them for any information or help I could get at this point, spoke to their resident plumber who said the shower had probably been connected to the cold mains supply.

I can't understand why this would make the hot water dribble out instead of coming out correctly but he's the expert.

I'm not a plumber and I don't know if I need a seperate cold water tank or a plpe from the existing one and a pump.

If any plumbers in the Lanarkshire area know what they have to do to sort this I would love to hear from them, please note I do not need any more maunure for the garden and there is no place to tie up a horse so no more cowboys.

A fully qualified plumber needed.

[htg engineer]

Hot water system type ???

If it is a system where the water is heated in a tank or cylinder, you will need a pump to increse the pressure. For mixer showers you need the hot and cold to be at equal pressures to get the best performance.

If it is a combi, then the hot and cold should be at equal (or thereabouts) and no need for a pump.

Ask around someone may recommend a good plumber. I'd rather have a recommendation than employ someone with an ad in the paper.


htg

[Haywood]

Hi htg engineer

Thank you for taking the time to post a reply.

Things have developed a little further since my last post, contacted said plumber, told hime I wasn't happy with a shower that has no control over teperature, options are scalding hot or freezing cold.

They agreed too come back and sort it.

I have a cold storage tank in the loft and an emersion heater on the same level as the bathroom, top of emersion heater is level with rose of shower.
I searched the internet and found a diagram of what I thought I needed to sort my hot water pressure problem, a twin pump.

Discussed this with the plumber, I thought installing the pump under the hot water tank as recommended on the manufacturers website, running a pipe from the cold water tank in the loft and from the hot water tank and then both to the shower.

Plumber wants to locate a single pump in the loft and connect to pipe from hot water tank and to add a valve on the cold to reduce the pressure.

My concerns are that the pressures will never be equal, is there a chance of the pump running dry and causing problems with the pump and is this just to get out of putting pipes in for both hot and cold.

Why could I not have found a plumber who had installed one of these showers before, we have spent over £3000 already but don't want to comprimise on getting the shower working correctly.

I just feel in a few months I will need to call them back as something just doesn't feel right about a pump in the loft but I may be wrong?

Anyone used a single pump on the hot water?
Which pump is best for this job?
Does this so called plumber know what he's talking about?
Am I headed for disaster? :?:

[bobplum]

hi
sorry if this is a bit late for you problem
from what i can gather on your last comment it seems as if the plumber wants to install a water equalising pressure valve
the hot and cold would go in one end of the valve the valve balances the pressures ie brings the cold mains down to the hot water pressure level then into the pump and on to the shower head or if you had one of these steam cabinets hot would run off to the cabinet and the cold into the pump
from what i can gather anyway
hope this helps
bob