Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bigron]

Thanks Jimmy; I'm getting more options that I can shake a stick at! I'm not entirely clear what you mean, not having done any more plumbing than putting a clod water tap in the garden, but I can Google a Salamander.
Oh, and I changed the 40-year-old Portsmouth valve in the loft tank for a posh Fluidmaster one - much quieter now.
I was slimmer then, and could get in there. And out again! 

Ron.

[Viral_Jim]

No worries. So, a bit of explanation on pumps, or at least what I understand of them. 

Positive head relies on a “pull” from the tap, shower or whatever. The pumpsenses the flow of water through it and then kicks in. Fine if you’re in a 3 storey house with a loft tank and switch on a ground floor. But if you only have a few feet of drop, it won’t generate enough pull to trigger the pump.

Negative head is a bit like a workshop compressor, it has a pressure vessel on it and fires the pump when it detects a drop of pressure in the vessel. So as soon as you turn on the tap, the pressure vessel pushes the water down the pipe, the pressure drops and the pump kicks in.

If you want to fit one, look up speedfit piping on screwfix’s Website. This stuff is great, it’s locking push fit pipework. So there’s no soldering or any nonsense like that. All you’d have to do is cut a section out of the outflow pipe from your tank and route it via the pump. Start to finish it should take less than an hour to do. 

I’ve now re-plumbed two houses in speedfit so if you have any questions on it, I may be able to help 

[Bigron]

Sounds like the pressure-activated taps in my caravan?
Speedfit is plastic, isn't it? Does it mate with copper, or does the entire system need to be Speedfit?
Any recommendations regarding the pump?
My apologies for all the questions! 

Ron

[ballcock50]

A few comments to make on this subject. Fitting a pump on your hot water outlet is not a problem but not always ideal as the flow through a basin tap would be excessive if allowing the pump to operate properly, The supplies to a mixer shower should be a balanced pressure ideally of the same header tank / tanks. If using mains supply ( again not recommended ) this can be adjusted with a pressure reducing valve inline. The ideal set up is a large enough storage tank to supply both the hot and cold water needs. with the cold water supply tank connection lower than that of the hot to ensure if a lack of water occurs the hot supply runs out before the cold, avoiding scalding. Your pump can be operated off a light pull switch if that helps. Speed fit fittings are able to be used on copper pipe but ensure you use a rotary pipe cutter or if using a hack saw file a taper on the ends as the sharp end will slice a nick in the "O" ring seal when you push it on.

[Bigron]

Good points, thank you.
No way can I even fit a large tank in my loft, never mind the weight on my poor rafters, and I have mains feed to all cold taps in the house, the only stored water is for the DHW feed.
When you say "operated off a pullcord switch", do you mean that it cannot be left on all the time, or is that just for when left unused for holidays, for instance?
If the latter, then the pullcord switch could be sited near the loft hatch, like my loft lights switch. 

Ron.

[ronnyd]

When i had our first power shower fitted by British Gas, some years ago, this needed a separate pump in the loft. When that went west i got a Triton with a built in pump for about £60 and my plumber fitted it for £25.

[Kevin Wood]

Good points, thank you.
No way can I even fit a large tank in my loft, never mind the weight on my poor rafters, and I have mains feed to all cold taps in the house, the only stored water is for the DHW feed.
When you say "operated off a pullcord switch", do you mean that it cannot be left on all the time, or is that just for when left unused for holidays, for instance?
If the latter, then the pullcord switch could be sited near the loft hatch, like my loft lights switch. 

Ron.

If you get a suitable shower mixer valve, you could run a pump for the hot water feed, and a pressure regulating valve and check valve on the cold water feed and it would probably work OK.

[Andy H]

I  would replace the cylinder with an unvented cylinder.

Have a look for 'Megaflo'.

No pumps or electrickery in the  bathroom and all the taps get good pressure.

[ballcock50]

Good points, thank you.
No way can I even fit a large tank in my loft, never mind the weight on my poor rafters, and I have mains feed to all cold taps in the house, the only stored water is for the DHW feed.
When you say "operated off a pullcord switch", do you mean that it cannot be left on all the time, or is that just for when left unused for holidays, for instance?
If the latter, then the pullcord switch could be sited near the loft hatch, like my loft lights switch. 

If you fit a standard light switch pull cord next to shower unit you can use it to operate the pump only when needed for the shower, A pressure reducing valve is like an adjustable control to set the pressure to be equal. on a lot of mixer showers the flow control isolates the outlet to the shower head and not the incoming supplies, so if the non return valve in the mixer valve fails you can back fill your storage tank form the mains supply, This can also happen with various mixer taps that are not design for mixed pressure. An unvented hot water system would be an option but can prove expensive and must be installed by a registered installer.

[Marks DTM Calib]

You don't need any great deal of head for a positive pressure pump and its generally easier to site the pump on the fllor by the cylinder anyway.

As for pumps, I personally (and from experience) would not advise on a Salamander as the seals fail after a few years and on most of their range, cant be replaced. Stuart Turner pumps are higher quality and far better serviced, plus shop around and they can be got for similar cash.

I had a Salamander 3Bar pump for about 5 years and this year it croaked, replaced with a Stuart Turner and its both quieter, more compact and easier to fit.

Oh yes, do it in copper with solder, not the crappy push fit as the temperature and pressure cycling is not got long term on the short cut fittings.

[Viral_Jim]

You don't need any great deal of head for a positive pressure pump and its generally easier to site the pump on the fllor by the cylinder anyway.

As for pumps, I personally (and from experience) would not advise on a Salamander as the seals fail after a few years and on most of their range, cant be replaced. Stuart Turner pumps are higher quality and far better serviced, plus shop around and they can be got for similar cash.

I had a Salamander 3Bar pump for about 5 years and this year it croaked, replaced with a Stuart Turner and its both quieter, more compact and easier to fit.

Oh yes, do it in copper with solder, not the crappy push fit as the temperature and pressure cycling is not got long term on the short cut fittings.

The salamander info is interesting, I hadn't come across many bad reports online (no more than any other brand).

Regarding the push fit, is there any actual basis for the assertion they don't last? The JG fittings carry a 25yr warranty against manufacturing and material defect. My personal (family) experience is a total of about 20yrs of use, 10yrs in parents' house (and counting), 5yrs then 4yrs in two of mine and no leaks in that time.

All the problems I've read about online have been down to poor installs. Namely:
- poorly fitted/missing pipe inserts
- failure to do up the locking rings on fittings
- copper burrs fouling o-rings due to not being cleaned correctly after cutting

As far as I can tell, copper gives only two advantages over plastic, namely:
- for a given outer diameter of pipe, you have a greater inner diameter for water to pass through.
- where space is tight, the fittings are significantly less bulky.

I know the "professionals" don't like pushfit, but then why would they, it turns piping a house from a skilled to a semi-skilled job, so they are bound to extol the virtues of their craft. Then again, around 30-40% of my entire renovation time on our latest house has been spent putting right what various professionals have thought was acceptable.

[YZ250]

As mine is a gravity system, I fitted a Stuart Turner pump on the floor in my Airing cupboard. The cold feed comes from the cold water loft tank and the hot feed comes from the hot water cylinder. It's a lot of pipework as my cold water feed comes in to the Airing cupboard from the loft tank, down to the pump, then back up in to the loft, across the loft and then down the bathroom wall. The hot feed from the cylinder goes to the inlet on the pump and then up to the loft, across the loft and down to the bathroom. It has worked great for many years now, giving good pressure to the thermostatic bar shower controls.
The pump is sat on a small slab and initially it could be heard humming through the floorboards when downstairs. I resolved this by sitting the slab on a square of sports matting (rubber matting) and it is barely audible now. 

[Kevin Wood]

I'd second the recommendation for Stuart Turner pumps. I've fitted them in both the previous house and the current one, where the installation has been in place for 14 years without a hitch.

Of course, there's no reason to do much more than fit the pump if the current tap and shower fittings are working OK and will cope with the extra pressure. (If the cold side is mains fed, then that's quite likely).

Check valves would be advisable to prevent one side of the mixer backfeeding into the other (and would probably be a legal requirement on the cold side).

[YZ250]

.....................
Regarding the push fit, is there any actual basis for the assertion they don't last? The JG fittings carry a 25yr warranty against manufacturing and material defect. 

The only push fit connectors I had in my system (copper throughout) is on the anti-vibration pipes coming directly off the pump. They are threaded on the pump side but push fit on the other end. When I was building my kitchen extension I had to remove the boiler so I was totally dependant on the hot water cylinder immersion heater. I hadn't realised that the cylinder tank stat was set slightly too high, although I found this out when water started coming through the sitting room ceiling. The hot water in the cylinder had reached a higher than usual temperature and the push fits (on the hot side only) had let go. As the fittings on the cold side were fine I can only conclude that the extra heat in the water temperature had fried the O Rings. 
I have since changed this set up to an adapted compression fitting.

[Lizzie Zoom]

.....................
Regarding the push fit, is there any actual basis for the assertion they don't last? The JG fittings carry a 25yr warranty against manufacturing and material defect. 

The only push fit connectors I had in my system (copper throughout) is on the anti-vibration pipes coming directly off the pump. They are threaded on the pump side but push fit on the other end. When I was building my kitchen extension I had to remove the boiler so I was totally dependant on the hot water cylinder immersion heater. I hadn't realised that the cylinder tank stat was set slightly too high, although I found this out when water started coming through the sitting room ceiling. The hot water in the cylinder had reached a higher than usual temperature and the push fits (on the hot side only) had let go. As the fittings on the cold side were fine I can only conclude that the extra heat in the water temperature had fried the O Rings. 
I have since changed this set up to an adapted compression fitting.

Plumber friends of mine would never use push-fit joints, and nor would I.  The simplicity and long term security of pre-soldered joints gives me no reason for even considering the 'amatuer' route.  The joy in seeing the solder show around a pre-soldered, or even plain metal coupling is so satisfying, and you know that will last.  I have heard of cases where the push-fit joints have popped off due to various reasons, including a reaction to metal fittings.  Why risk it?