Another plumbing question
Discussion
Just replaced an electric shower.
On removing the supplyside 15mm elbow compression fitting, the feed pipe appeared to be blocked by a nylon insert.
Removal of this shows it to be a helical insert which is presumably something to do with altering the water flow.
Anyway new shower installed and working fine but never seen this helical insert before.
WTF is it for?
On removing the supplyside 15mm elbow compression fitting, the feed pipe appeared to be blocked by a nylon insert.
Removal of this shows it to be a helical insert which is presumably something to do with altering the water flow.
Anyway new shower installed and working fine but never seen this helical insert before.
WTF is it for?
It's a flow restrictor. Electric showers MUST reduce the flow otherwise they simply wouldn't get hot enough. Some 'silent' ballvalves have similar restrictors because they are an equilibrium design that shuts off slowly. Without the restrictor it is difficult to get the correct flushing volume without pushing water down the overflow. The current 6 litre cisterns only serve to exacerbate the problem.
parrot of doom said:Pressure can ONLY be reduced with a Pressure Reducing Valve, flow however can be reduced with any sort of obstruction. I'm often told by customers that they have turned the stopcock down to reduce the pressure.... Nett result is a burst of water from the tap when the pressure build up is released followed by vastly reduced flow.
...and the nylon adjuster was inserted to correct the pressure.
parrot of doom said:Pipework size has no apprciable effect on mains pressure water to an electric shower.
Sounds like your shower had the wrong size pipework,
Interesting point between pressure and flow rate.
I suppose for normal applications what counts practically is how many litres/min you get, ie how long it takes to fill a bath.
When installing a new washbasin I fitted two elbows to each pipe (haven't mastered bending yet, tried it once and cost me a spring) to get them closer to the wall, and the flow rate is noticeably lower.
I suppose for normal applications what counts practically is how many litres/min you get, ie how long it takes to fill a bath.
When installing a new washbasin I fitted two elbows to each pipe (haven't mastered bending yet, tried it once and cost me a spring) to get them closer to the wall, and the flow rate is noticeably lower.
Gassing Station | The Pie & Piston Archive | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff