Low hot water pressure

[cc1]

The pressure upstairs in the hot water system is really slow, when running a bath it's almost cold before enough has run. Is it possible to increase the pressure? Not me personally, but a plumber. The hot tank is on the landing, ie there's almost zero drop, can we have some kind of pump fitted on the hot water cylinder to increase the pressure?
It's a fairly modern system, the last 5 years, I doubt these is enough space to put the tank in the roof space or it would have been done when the house was modernised.

[The Builder]

I guess you have a "combination" cylinder CC1 ....................... i.e. adivided cylinder with a small cold tank over the hot tank.
If so, this is a common problem. They're usually put in when no roof space is available for a conventional cistern. Also, they get installed when someone can't be @rsed to do it properly.!!!
Before I go on............. is that correct so far?

[cc1]

Yes, sounds exactly right, there's a big tank and a smaller one. The rest of the work in the house is done to a high standard, it wasn't someone doing a renovation on the cheap, he lived here! Thanks so far, is there a solution?

[The Builder]

OK .................. a pump would certainly give you a decent pressure. The problem is that the cold storage is so small that the pump would most likely empty the cold tank before it had time to fill up again. Then you'd take in air, and have all kinds of problems.
If you have room, a good solution would be to replace the cylinder with a conventional one and a decent sized cold cistern .......... mounted as high up to the ceiling as possible. With a good amount of cold storage, a pump could be configured to give a good flow. In fact, you wouldn't need a pump if the cold was high enough. I doubt if that is at all practicable though :o(
The usual way is to raise the present cylinder. Even raising it a foot (300mm) would make an appreciable difference. How much room between top of cylinder and the ceiling?

[cc1]

There looks to be space to raise it, so after Christmas I think I'll try and find a local plumber to come and have a look. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply.

[The Builder]

OK ........... do you have any roof space at all?

[tezestwing]

Mr builder (The usual way is to raise the present cylinder.) fraid not, it all depends on how high you can get the stored water tank, the bigger more area the better more weight you see, the hot water out the top of the cyl is equal to the cold into the bottom of the cyl,CC1 you need to investigate if you can get the storage tank into the higher loft or two tanks for more water then, you could have a pump installed with shower as well,the other very expensive option would be to get a mains pressured cylinder,have you tried to put temperature up on the immersion or cyl stat,if boiler heated, not recommended though if you have children HTH Tez