Water pressure

oggiet

oggiet

oggiet

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We moved into our house few months ago, it's on South coast.

Water pressure is crap, we got water softener straight after the stopcock in our garage which feeds the house.

Combi boiler on ground floor feeds bathroom on first floor, is there any way of increasing water pressure coming into the bathroom shower ?

Any help would be appreciated :)
 
Do you have an individual water feed into your house or do you share the water feed with your neighbours (after the main stopcock in the road)?

We have a shared water feed with the neighbours and had bad water pressure for years. Turned out to be several leaks in the water pipe in our neighbours part of the pipe.

After the water company fixed the leaks the pressure was improved massively.
 
Is the pressure crap, or is the flow rate crap. Our property was fed by a 3/4 inch pipe that had corroded down to 1/4 inch. The measured pressure was still high but the flow rate was a prostatic dribble.
 
johnny6 said:
Do you have an individual water feed into your house or do you share the water feed with your neighbours (after the main stopcock in the road)?

We have a shared water feed with the neighbours and had bad water pressure for years. Turned out to be several leaks in the water pipe in our neighbours part of the pipe.

After the water company fixed the leaks the pressure was improved massively.
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It's a detached house, our stop **** is in our garage and the main one is on the pavement. Each house has one on the pavement so don't think it's shared.
 
drakulton said:
Is the pressure crap, or is the flow rate crap. Our property was fed by a 3/4 inch pipe that had corroded down to 1/4 inch. The measured pressure was still high but the flow rate was a prostatic dribble.
Click to expand...
To be honest I wouldn't know how to tell the difference :o
It's 90s house so don't think pipes are that old.
Think water pressure is crap and we have moved from London where we were spoiled with water pressure.

Guy that did our bathroom said it's normal for this area, just wondering if there is any way of increasing it.
 
First thing to do is ask water company for a flow and pressure test. This will help identify if problem is at your end or theirs. There's a min standard which it would be good to get confirmation you're achieving before you take next steps.
 
danlightbulb said:
First thing to do is ask water company for a flow and pressure test. This will help identify if problem is at your end or theirs. There's a min standard which it would be good to get confirmation you're achieving before you take next steps.
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That's great info, thank you.....will do that.
 
The minimum requirement is hardly great, its 1 bar measured at the point of connection.

My pressure/flow was poor so I installed a homeboost. I really need to pick it up with the water company as the pressure got worse after they did some work, and my upstairs shower was delivering less than 3 l/m, now with the homeboost its closer to 9 l/m. I have got a lead supply pipe from their stop tap to mine, but the fact the pump can significantly increase flow shows its not really the issue.

Homeboost does the job fine, but isnt quiet.

www.salamanderpumps.co.uk

HomeBoost Mains Booster Water Pump | Salamander Pumps

HomeBoost is an intelligent pump which recognises when the mains water is low and boosts the water flow up to 12L/min. Find out how HomeBoost improves water flow.
www.salamanderpumps.co.uk www.salamanderpumps.co.uk
 
if you can't fill a 1 litre jug in 7 seconds then you can complain to the water company the flow rate is too low, over twitter is probably the easiest way

you should be getting 10-15litres per minute.

my water pressure is all over the place, sometimes the showers so low I can barely feel the water hitting me :/ it's like a trickle with no force.
 
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arknor said:
if you can't fill a 1 litre jug in 7 seconds then you can complain to the water company the flow rate is too low, over twitter is probably the easiest way

you should be getting 10-15litres per minute.

my water pressure is all over the place, sometimes the showers so low I can barely feel the water hitting me :/ it's like a trickle with no force.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll try jug measure on our cold tap in the kitchen where water hasn't been softened.
 
Your water supplier should state a minimum pressure and flow rate in the contract unless that’s changed since I left the U.K.

Out here dans le sticks, the mains pressure varies between 6-11 bar, so everyone has a pressure regulator on their side of the meter and many folks have them fitted to their immersion heaters as well.
 
arknor said:
if you can't fill a 1 litre jug in 7 seconds then you can complain to the water company the flow rate is too low, over twitter is probably the easiest way

you should be getting 10-15litres per minute.

my water pressure is all over the place, sometimes the showers so low I can barely feel the water hitting me :/ it's like a trickle with no force.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that about the 7 seconds thing. Will try that tonight out of interest. We have no issues, I just want to know how much water we get in 7 seconds. lol
 
Ours must be pretty high we get really bad water hammer especially from the washing machine. But if you turn a tap off too fast as well. Not even sure how to sort it out. Tried one of those arrestor things on the washing machine pipe and it did nothing.
 
robj20 said:
Ours must be pretty high we get really bad water hammer especially from the washing machine. But if you turn a tap off too fast as well. Not even sure how to sort it out. Tried one of those arrestor things on the washing machine pipe and it did nothing.
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I have this too, our pressure is bordering on ridiculous to be honest. We get water hammer on some of the appliances and the taps to each are only just on. First thing in the morning when you turn a tap on it jets as the pressure built overnight lets off. It is good though in the shower, I had a megaflow hot water tank put in and we get lovely high pressure hot water.
 
@robj20 @peige

After your stopcock fit a Pressure Reducing Valve, there are cheap ones available from screwfix/toolstation etc. good quality ones are Caleffi.
But even with that, opening and closing taps really fast is going to cause hammer. I don't know why washing machine manufacturers make the valves so violent. Having screw style taps vs lever taps, where you have to gradually close the tap rather than slapping it open/closed will help.
 
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Mason- said:
@robj20 @peige

After your stopcock fit a Pressure Reducing Valve, there are cheap ones available from screwfix/toolstation etc. good quality ones are Caleffi.
But even with that, opening and closing taps really fast is going to cause hammer. I don't know why washing machine manufacturers make the valves so violent. Having screw style taps vs lever taps, where you have to gradually close the tap rather than slapping it open/closed will help.
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I'm aware of those, it was our next stop if we couldn't deal with the situation as well as anti hammer devices you can also fit. We've kind of all got used to it now and open taps slowly!
 
The simplest way is to put a domestic booster pump. You can boost the entire house or choose a smaller unit to just boost a shower. There are also shower units with built in pumps. I have a small one on my kitchen tap. Cost starts at about £150 for one tap and about £300 for the entire house. Plus fitting, of course.
 
SpellowHouse said:
The simplest way is to put a domestic booster pump. You can boost the entire house or choose a smaller unit to just boost a shower. There are also shower units with built in pumps. I have a small one on my kitchen tap. Cost starts at about £150 for one tap and about £300 for the entire house. Plus fitting, of course.
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Yeah that's what I'm thinking, putting one in the garage just after the stopcock. That way entire house is boosted and noise is kept in the garage.
 
You can buy a pressure tester very cheaply which fits to garden tap type fitting. This is key to know if your poor flow is due to only pressure and/or restriction.

While pressure is often the main issue, the size of the mains supply pipe and internal fittings can restrict flow for any given pressure. In modern homes the use of plastic pipe means less flow than copper due to wall thickness and inserts and its very common for isolation values to not be full bore which significantly reduce flow.

To give an example, in my current home we had poor flow when we moved in despite 4 bar pressure which isn't bad. First off I found the mains supply pipe was old 1/2" ID supply pipe which I had a company replace with 32mm OD/26mm ID. I then replaced internal cold supply pipework from there with 28mm copper pipe (so similar ID) to the HW cylinder where is splits for that and cold supply around the house. Then I simply replaced all isolation values near showers and taps such as the bath where I wanted good flow with full bore versions (all cheap small bore). The end result was more than double the flow with the same pressure.

Before I did this I had plumbing firms out for their recommendations and none of them measured anything and just focused on selling various pumps and accumulators as that's higher profit per hour work. My approach wasn't the quickest fix, but other than the new supply pipe which was due to having an old house the rest wasn't that much work. The result is silent and nothing to fail more than we had before.
 
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