Another plumbing question

[Nickienickie]

HI we have recently had a new bathroom fitted inc a separate shower and bath. We bought an overhead Hansgrohe showerhead which the shop recommended a 3 bar pump with.  We decided to try out the water pressure first before going ahead and getting a pump fitted and told our plumber all along that this was our plan.  He said it was easy enough to put in a pump if we changed our mind.  Well, before he completed the bathroom we said we wanted to go ahead with the pump and I called in another plumber for a comparable quote.. he told me that as the plumber hadn't run a separate hot and cold water supply to the shower that it was basically impossible to install a pump without running separate water supplies to the toilet and the kitchen ( the cold water comes down from the attic via the toilet, the hot water comes up to the bathroom via the kitchen).  he explained that if we utilised the current set up, that everytime the toilet was flushed, the pump would start up and that while the shower was in use we could have no hot water in the kitchen, or worse, get air in the pipes.  I have another plumber coming around this week to give another quote and I'm still waiting to hear from the installation plumber to get his handle on it but i would be really interested in hearing any thoughts out there before I go ahead and fork out another �500 or so quid on top of the �1000's we've already spent.  My main gripe is that the installation plumber should have advised us of the implications of not making a decision at the start before he continued on with the pipe work .. I mean, I don't take my car to a mechanic and tell him what to do, so why should it be different with a plumber ?? AARRGGHH!

[nedflanders]

It is hard to tell with your explanation? if the toilet feed comes off the main after shower the pump will start but if it comes off the main before it will be fine.  Get many quotes as these people are notoriously shady!  Do u not know anyone who is a plumber that you could trust ?

[Nickienickie]

hi . .the cold water comes down from the cold tank in the attic to the toilet then to our shower .. I think ( short of looking in the wall how would I be able to tell ??) unless it's t junctioned off to the shower and the toilet ..

The plumber we used is a friend and I thought he was up to the job .. I think he's great for simple swap/plumbing jobs but ours appears to have been one that's taken some thought and I thnkhe's let us down in that department .. however, like you said, there are dodgy dudes out there - am getting another plumber in on weds so will be interesting to see what he says ..

[Galena1]

Hi Nickie - Having fitted just one or two power showers over the years I believe I'm qualified to comment:-). I'll take it step by step and try to keep it simple.  Local site situations can dictate the most appropriate way for installation but offer as much advice as I can.

In a perfect world!!

1. For a pumped shower system that you describe you need and 'old-fashioned' type of hot water system. That is a. A cold water storage tank in the loft/roofspace and b.a hot water storage cylinder/boiler.

2. A 22mm dedicated cold water supply should be run from the cold tank to connect to the pump.  The cold water tank should be minimum 50 gallon storage in 'old money'.

3. A separate connection should be made to the top/side of the hot water cylinder and, again, a dedicated 22mm hot supply connected to the pump. 22mm hot and cold supplies should then be run as near to the shower as possible, the closer the better.  If this is not practical, run 22mm as far as possible and then 15mm the rest.

I appreciate that pipe runs may be difficult and this is where plastic pipe such as Hep2o come into their own.

Plastic pipes can be 'fed' through al sorts of nooks and crannies and down inside existing 'boxings' that surround pipework etc.

Do you have access to under the bathroom floorboards? If so it may be easy to connect to only the existing shower supplies with new pumped ones.

Finally, does the Grohe manual stipulate a 3Bar pump? Generally, I repeat, generally, I have tended to only fit 3Bar pumps on all 'singing and dancing' showers with body jets and overhead cascades, opting for something smaller for straight forward showering.

I hope this in someway helps and hasn't confused you even more.

Kindest Regards.