Testing water pressure?

New2Dubs

Recently moved into a 'new' house (25 years old) - how might we go about testing mains water pressure? Hoping to replace a very noisy electric shower.

John.G

You might first check the type of electric shower installed, mains supplied are rarely very loud but the other type called a pumped electric shower can be very noisy, if you have the latter type then this is supplied from a storage tank in the attic and the mains pressure isn't critical.

New2Dubs

Thanks John, we're looking to install a pressurised hot water cylinder & replacing the electric shower with a bar mixer. We don't know if this is possible as it depends on the mains pressure.

Calahonda52

You cannot pressurise the house system from the mains.

New2Dubs

How else might I go about improving/increasing water pressure?

Water John

You seem to be talking about putting in a closed pump pressurised system. This does away with the header tank in the attic. The booster pump comes on once you open any tap and it senses a drop in pressure.

New2Dubs

Thats really helpful, thanks a million.

New2Dubs

Update: had a boiler specialist come out - he used a device under the cold tap in the kitchen while running the tap. This measured mains water pressure. Ours was 6 litres per min - too low for a combi boiler, so need to explore alternatives for bar mixer shower.

Water John

That's flow, not pressure. It is a very low flow. The rating on the water meter valve at the stopcock is 55l/min. Pressure is almost certainly low too with that flow.
This is almost certainly the mains as the cold kitchen tap was always connected directly to the mains. Hardly the attic tank, but with that low flow, I'd wonder?
Is your house a good distance from the mains water pipe? The half inch service pipe to the house, would lower the flow if it was a long distance.

John.G

If you really need a bar mixer shower and a pressurised hot water cylinder ( known as a unvented HW cylinder) then you need a cold water storage tank (CWST) and a pump to increase the pressure to 2 to 3 bar, the pump will then supply cold (and hot water via the unvented HW cylinder) to meet all your requirements, probably less expensive to install a vented HW cylinder and a 3 bar pump which will pump cold water from the CWST and hot water from the vented HW cylinder, both at 2 to 3 bar.
IF your house already has a CWST and a vented HW cylinder and you don't specifically require a bar mixer shower then a by far cheaper alternative is to install a shower like a Triton Noval SR which has a internal pump that takes cold water from your CWST and Hot Water from your vented HW storage cylinder and will deliver a flow rate of up to 14 LPM which should be adequate for most bearing in mind that any shower that delivers more than 10 LPM is deemed to be a power shower, you could install a number of these if required as the only require a few amps to power them unlike a full electric shower which requires 40A to power.
The choice is yours to make.

New2Dubs

Thanks to you both - bit out of our depth (nice pun), so really appreciate your taking the time to respond.

According to survey we have 2 water storage tanks in the attic. Might cold kitchen tap connect to one of these?

John.G

It might, easiest way to check is to ensure both tanks are full (ball cock not making up water to either) by going into the attic then get someone to open the tap and see/hear if one or both ball cocks start filling the tank(s). Also check if both tanks are the same size or if one is much larger than the other.

rightjob!

New2Dubs wrote: »

Update: had a boiler specialist come out - he used a device under the cold tap in the kitchen while running the tap. This measured mains water pressure. Ours was 6 litres per min - too low for a combi boiler, so need to explore alternatives for bar mixer shower.

You can still install a combi,you need to have an attic storage tank and then a pump after this to feed the combi.

Pressure issue solved

New2Dubs

The estate agent blurb described it as a new combi boiler, but on moving in we've discovered it's not a combi. As it's newish, we're in two minds about replacing.