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Thread: Any plumbers here?

  1. #1
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    Default Any plumbers here?

    Bear with me because I'm not very experienced! I know the basics but not the jargon!

    My girlfriend moved into a house a while back which had been owned by a complete idiot who seemed to think he was a DIY god. He wasn't...

    She had an electric shower in her bathroom with hot and cold feeds from the loft above. We couldn't get any decent pressure out of it and it made a dreadful noise, and would constantly stutter as if being starved of water. I took the thing apart and found carbon deposits on the inside and what seemed to be a knackered motor. It was ancient anyway and looked very dodgy so I shut off the electric supply, removed the motor and thought we'd just use it as a non-power shower, afterall the water pressure is fairly decent anyway.

    It now works fine for a few minutes, but after that the hot water supply just seems to disappear and you get a noise as if the system is being starved again. I looked up in the loft and found the cold water feed came straight from the rising main (fine as far as i know, correct me if I'm wrong) but the hot water came from the cylinder vent pipe (not good?), just below the outlet.

    If I am correct, this means that as long as the cylinder is full and hot, the hot water will flow up the vent pipe and back down into the bathroom, but as soon as it empties slightly, it will stop and so will the shower.

    Please could someone tell me if my thinking is correct and why on earth someone would fit a system like this and expect it to work. It's very obviously an addition to the original hot water system, all of which is fine (rest of the water supply to the bathroom comes from pipes under the floor and the pressure is fine).

    If anyone has got any advice for me I'd very much appreciate it. I'm getting sick of having to have baths when I stay with my missus!

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    i would cap off the hot water feed, and fit a power shower in, if the electrics for a shower are already there, just check the wiring can carry the current and its on its own circuit (mcb or fuse)

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    The basic electrics seem fine and are on their own MCB. I was tempted to fit an electrically heated shower and just use the cold feed but the earth would need replacing. Might still look into it.

    Both feeds to the bath taps are fine and decent pressure but sending them up to the shower would mean re-tiling... Might just fit a set of mixer taps with a shower attachment...

    Cheers.

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    Regular Member Zark's Avatar
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    yeah, instant mains fed showers much less a pain...

    incidentally - if the cylinder had a surrey flange in the top - it might look like a feed off of the vent pipe? i'm no expert - but have a look at http://www.tapstore.com/acatalog/Surrey_Flange.html

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    Regular Member ditchp's Avatar
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    sound like you have negative head mate, fitting a negative head pump circa £300.00 would solve this problem, capping of the hot and fitting a cold fed electric shower is not nessesaraly cheaper, bear in mind if you get a 10.5KW you need 10mm twin & earth cable to supply it an RCD if not already in the consumer unit, a 45 amp mcb fitted to the board, earth bonding and to top it all off a small work's certificate for the installation............

    dont think i have missed anything out there

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