Plumbing questions ...
Discussion
Chaps,
I am contemplating fitting a new bathroom. One part of which will be a power shower.
Now, I have done a little plumbing before, but have a number of questions about things (like fitting a power shower!) Does anyone know of any reallg good plumbing websites, with both instructions pages and possibly forums (like this one) so that I can post numpty questions?
Google has thrown up a fairly inconclusive list.
Thanks!
Oli.
I am contemplating fitting a new bathroom. One part of which will be a power shower.
Now, I have done a little plumbing before, but have a number of questions about things (like fitting a power shower!) Does anyone know of any reallg good plumbing websites, with both instructions pages and possibly forums (like this one) so that I can post numpty questions?
Google has thrown up a fairly inconclusive list.
Thanks!
Oli.
Try
www.diynot.com
www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl
www.screwfix.co.uk then click on talk
By the way be careful with the electrics, if you fould up the plumbing you get wet, if you foul up the leckies, you die!!!
Good luck
Glocko
www.diynot.com
www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl
www.screwfix.co.uk then click on talk
By the way be careful with the electrics, if you fould up the plumbing you get wet, if you foul up the leckies, you die!!!
Good luck
Glocko
zcacogp said:
Does anyone know of any reallg good plumbing websites, with both instructions pages and possibly forums (like this one) so that I can post numpty questions?
click here for help
There you go, Billy.....
mybrainhurts said:
Does anyone know of any reallg good plumbing websites, with both instructions pages and possibly forums (like this one) so that I can post numpty questions?
click here for help
There you go, Billy.....
LOL
LMAO
With the push in plumbing fittings you can get these days its really easy to fit a power shower.
I would advise you get the best pump you can, Wickes do a nice brass housing pump for around £200, and get a simple mixer from B&Q for about £100 ( an Aquaforce I think its called....).
The trickiest bit is to find a power supply to wire the power shower motor into. I was repacing an electric shower so I simply used that power feed.
Make sure you get the cold water feed from the cold water tank and not mains cold water or the mixer will never balance the hot and cold water feeds, use the push on fittings and make sure you use a proper pipe cutter to cut the copper pipe, not a junior hacksaw...
Cheers,
Tony
I would advise you get the best pump you can, Wickes do a nice brass housing pump for around £200, and get a simple mixer from B&Q for about £100 ( an Aquaforce I think its called....).
The trickiest bit is to find a power supply to wire the power shower motor into. I was repacing an electric shower so I simply used that power feed.
Make sure you get the cold water feed from the cold water tank and not mains cold water or the mixer will never balance the hot and cold water feeds, use the push on fittings and make sure you use a proper pipe cutter to cut the copper pipe, not a junior hacksaw...
Cheers,
Tony
camper said:
push in plumbing fitting dont last 5 minutes!!, the "O" ring goes with time!, how come if they are so good they wont allow Gas fitting to be made with these then?
just wondered?
camper
Because they work on pressure and you dont get enough pressure from gas to make the fittings work correctly
Chaps,
Thanks for your posts. The situation is thus:
The house is a small terraced 1890's affair in East London. I haven't investigated the current plumbing situation in detail, but do know it to be primitive in the extreme. I think it has evolved over time, and hence is a hotch-potch (read "Botch"
. I don't think that there is a cold water tank in the roof, and also know that there is no hot water tank. The water pressure generally is lousy, and whenever you turn the hot tap in the bathroom on, you have a good few minute wait while the boiler in the kitchen fires up, warms the water up and starts pushing it along the pipes to the bathroom. There is a heat-on-demand electric shower in the bathroom which is dire - a single cold feed into it, and if you turn any other tap in the house on while someone is in the shower, the water pressure drops such that the shower heater refuses to heat the water so the shower goes cold. This happens when the washing machine is on, or the toilet is flushed. This may have been fine for the last occupant, but we are looking to change the bathroom and would like a better shower. Initial thought was simply to put in a power shower, nice and simple, but I don't quite know how to do this - what the requirements are in terms of input pressures (from mains or from a water tank) and what sort of hot water input you would need to feed it. So, that is question 1 - what inputs do you need to give to a power shower?
Also, how do you control a power shower? Our old flat had one, with a single control knob which turned the shower on (electrically), as well as controlling the temperature. Presumably this is a standard sort of arrangement, and the control system would have been supplied with the pump unit when the shower was new?
However, I have recently heard things about high pressure hot water systems which sound good - particularly that they offer pressure such that a seperate shower pump is un-necessary. This sounds like it would solve the problems we have with hot water elsewhere. So, how hard is it to do a high-pressure hot water system, and what do you need? Do you need a new (special) boiler? The old one is getting on a little (12 years +) but works OK. How hard are they to fit, where do you put the tank, could we run the high-pressure hot water through the existing hot water pipes or do you need special pipes? Can you put a high-pressure hot water feed into a washing machine - do washing machine inlets cope with the pressure?
So, I guess that is question 2 - what is, and how do you plumb in, a high-pressure hot water system? What parts do you need, and are they expensive? Also, is DIY'ing it a reasonable proposition? And what knock-on effects do high-pressure hot systems have (washing machine inputs and pipework etc.)
Also, what can be done to improve the cold water pressure? Anything or nothing. We can access the cold water input to the house - in the cellar - and it is a very old lead pipe. It is joined to a copper pipe about 10 feet or so into the house, but is this something to worry about? (I'm not that worried about lead poisoning, more that the narrow gauge of the pipe is part of the pressure problem.)
I am aware that this is serious scope creep, and what I am suggesting is bordering on re-plumbing most of the house! The good news is that there are actually very few taps in the house - kitchen sink, bathroom sink and bath. There is also one toilet cistern and a washing machine and a washing-up machine. Oh, and another thing on the list of things to do is to move the washing machine to the cellar, so the plumbing for this could be done at the same time.
The other thing is that we will be re-doing the kitchen at some time soon, so the (new) boiler could be moved pretty much wherever we want. Ideally this would go down to the cellar, leaving a free-er space in which to build the new kitchen. However, this would be a fairly big job as it would involve moving gas pipes as well as radiator heating pipes. Maybe this will be a bit much, and discretion would be the better part.
My background knowledge of plumbing is limited, but I have done solder joints on copper piping many times. I guess what I am looking for is guidance on designing these sort of systems ... also, are those push-fit pipe connectors any good? If they are, they would save a whole load of soldering hassle ...
If anyone has any answers to this rather long series of questions, please do post them here. Ferg - you sounds like a pro, but please don't feel obliged to give huge amounts of input ... I shall also surf the forums you have given me links too - thanks.
Oli.
Thanks for your posts. The situation is thus:
The house is a small terraced 1890's affair in East London. I haven't investigated the current plumbing situation in detail, but do know it to be primitive in the extreme. I think it has evolved over time, and hence is a hotch-potch (read "Botch"
. I don't think that there is a cold water tank in the roof, and also know that there is no hot water tank. The water pressure generally is lousy, and whenever you turn the hot tap in the bathroom on, you have a good few minute wait while the boiler in the kitchen fires up, warms the water up and starts pushing it along the pipes to the bathroom. There is a heat-on-demand electric shower in the bathroom which is dire - a single cold feed into it, and if you turn any other tap in the house on while someone is in the shower, the water pressure drops such that the shower heater refuses to heat the water so the shower goes cold. This happens when the washing machine is on, or the toilet is flushed. This may have been fine for the last occupant, but we are looking to change the bathroom and would like a better shower. Initial thought was simply to put in a power shower, nice and simple, but I don't quite know how to do this - what the requirements are in terms of input pressures (from mains or from a water tank) and what sort of hot water input you would need to feed it. So, that is question 1 - what inputs do you need to give to a power shower? Also, how do you control a power shower? Our old flat had one, with a single control knob which turned the shower on (electrically), as well as controlling the temperature. Presumably this is a standard sort of arrangement, and the control system would have been supplied with the pump unit when the shower was new?
However, I have recently heard things about high pressure hot water systems which sound good - particularly that they offer pressure such that a seperate shower pump is un-necessary. This sounds like it would solve the problems we have with hot water elsewhere. So, how hard is it to do a high-pressure hot water system, and what do you need? Do you need a new (special) boiler? The old one is getting on a little (12 years +) but works OK. How hard are they to fit, where do you put the tank, could we run the high-pressure hot water through the existing hot water pipes or do you need special pipes? Can you put a high-pressure hot water feed into a washing machine - do washing machine inlets cope with the pressure?
So, I guess that is question 2 - what is, and how do you plumb in, a high-pressure hot water system? What parts do you need, and are they expensive? Also, is DIY'ing it a reasonable proposition? And what knock-on effects do high-pressure hot systems have (washing machine inputs and pipework etc.)
Also, what can be done to improve the cold water pressure? Anything or nothing. We can access the cold water input to the house - in the cellar - and it is a very old lead pipe. It is joined to a copper pipe about 10 feet or so into the house, but is this something to worry about? (I'm not that worried about lead poisoning, more that the narrow gauge of the pipe is part of the pressure problem.)
I am aware that this is serious scope creep, and what I am suggesting is bordering on re-plumbing most of the house! The good news is that there are actually very few taps in the house - kitchen sink, bathroom sink and bath. There is also one toilet cistern and a washing machine and a washing-up machine. Oh, and another thing on the list of things to do is to move the washing machine to the cellar, so the plumbing for this could be done at the same time.
The other thing is that we will be re-doing the kitchen at some time soon, so the (new) boiler could be moved pretty much wherever we want. Ideally this would go down to the cellar, leaving a free-er space in which to build the new kitchen. However, this would be a fairly big job as it would involve moving gas pipes as well as radiator heating pipes. Maybe this will be a bit much, and discretion would be the better part.
My background knowledge of plumbing is limited, but I have done solder joints on copper piping many times. I guess what I am looking for is guidance on designing these sort of systems ... also, are those push-fit pipe connectors any good? If they are, they would save a whole load of soldering hassle ...
If anyone has any answers to this rather long series of questions, please do post them here. Ferg - you sounds like a pro, but please don't feel obliged to give huge amounts of input ... I shall also surf the forums you have given me links too - thanks.
Oli.
bear in mind building regs
1)if you go for a replacement boiler its gotta be one of the new condesing types.
2)all gas work to be carried out by competent person
corgi.
3)water board only gaurentee .75 bar prassure at the inlet these days not 1bar as previously so if you run a gravity system on your cold feed to shower and your hot is mains prssurised from the combi you will suffer from possible scalding toilet flush syndrome and in reverse if you take the hot feed prior to the shower pipe due to unbalenced pressures
4)if you install a power shower with its own booster pump on cold feed with electric element this would do but you would need a nic eic reg electrician to wire the circuit
5)pressurised hotwater cylinders also require a competent person to install g7 doc (some plumbers not been on the course yet) so ask for competency if you get a man in.also you will need to find a suitable sized home for the cylinder and a route for its safety valve discharge
6)you mention your lead main you are responsible from the service valve in the street to your house so you could pull a new main of sufficient size 25mm or 32mm
if you got real pressure issues then get the board to connect
hope this of help here if need further advice
happy plumbing
guy
1)if you go for a replacement boiler its gotta be one of the new condesing types.
2)all gas work to be carried out by competent person
corgi.
3)water board only gaurentee .75 bar prassure at the inlet these days not 1bar as previously so if you run a gravity system on your cold feed to shower and your hot is mains prssurised from the combi you will suffer from possible scalding toilet flush syndrome and in reverse if you take the hot feed prior to the shower pipe due to unbalenced pressures
4)if you install a power shower with its own booster pump on cold feed with electric element this would do but you would need a nic eic reg electrician to wire the circuit
5)pressurised hotwater cylinders also require a competent person to install g7 doc (some plumbers not been on the course yet) so ask for competency if you get a man in.also you will need to find a suitable sized home for the cylinder and a route for its safety valve discharge
6)you mention your lead main you are responsible from the service valve in the street to your house so you could pull a new main of sufficient size 25mm or 32mm
if you got real pressure issues then get the board to connect
hope this of help here if need further advice
happy plumbing
guy
Push-fit connectors are for people who are too lazy or incompetent to make proper soldered connections. They require the outer surface of the pipe to be in pristine condition to avoid leaks. New pipes often have longitudinal scratches from being pulled out of the storage racking, which are ideal for making leaks, and old pipes are rarely in good enough condition, especially if they've been painted or bent. The connectors do not mechanically locate the pipes very well and every push-fit installation I've seen has been ugly as arseholes. Since you can solder, do it properly, it's a lot less hassle overall.
Am I correct in thinking that your water pressure is crap everywhere, including the first tap in the house? It's probably worth looking to see if there's an incoming stopcock which is not fully turned on, and if so, turn it fully on (note though that they are often deliberately turned down to stop water hammer). If there is a draincock next to it - there should be - you can try cracking that and seeing if the flow from that is crap too; if it is, the problem must be in the feed to your house and there's not much you can do, whereas if it flows well there you've probably got an obstruction in your own pipework. Do you have old steel pipes? They can block themselves internally with rust.
No hot water system will perform adequately if it doesn't have a decent feed, so if you can't get a decent flow/pressure from any of the cold side, a high pressure system won't help you. You'd be better off installing a nice big roof tank with enough capacity to ensure that the hot system always has a good feed, and a hot water cylinder. The shower should have its own cold and hot feeds direct from the tank and cylinder to avoid interaction with other water uses.
Washing machines are quite happy with high pressure on the hot inlet; it's low pressure they don't like, though you may not notice as they'll just fill with cold and then heat it up electrically, which is expensive. Putting them in the cellar is likely to be an arse as you'll need a pump to get the waste water up to the sewer.
It's all pretty straightforward to DIY, including installing a new boiler, though legally you're supposed to pay some exorbitant fee to some bloke with a manometer to perform a simple pressure test that you could perfectly well do yourself on the new gas piping. You say you've done a fair bit of pipe soldering before - well it's just more of it, really. Compared to a lot of car jobs, plumbing jobs take longer but are easier and less skilled.
Am I correct in thinking that your water pressure is crap everywhere, including the first tap in the house? It's probably worth looking to see if there's an incoming stopcock which is not fully turned on, and if so, turn it fully on (note though that they are often deliberately turned down to stop water hammer). If there is a draincock next to it - there should be - you can try cracking that and seeing if the flow from that is crap too; if it is, the problem must be in the feed to your house and there's not much you can do, whereas if it flows well there you've probably got an obstruction in your own pipework. Do you have old steel pipes? They can block themselves internally with rust.
No hot water system will perform adequately if it doesn't have a decent feed, so if you can't get a decent flow/pressure from any of the cold side, a high pressure system won't help you. You'd be better off installing a nice big roof tank with enough capacity to ensure that the hot system always has a good feed, and a hot water cylinder. The shower should have its own cold and hot feeds direct from the tank and cylinder to avoid interaction with other water uses.
Washing machines are quite happy with high pressure on the hot inlet; it's low pressure they don't like, though you may not notice as they'll just fill with cold and then heat it up electrically, which is expensive. Putting them in the cellar is likely to be an arse as you'll need a pump to get the waste water up to the sewer.
It's all pretty straightforward to DIY, including installing a new boiler, though legally you're supposed to pay some exorbitant fee to some bloke with a manometer to perform a simple pressure test that you could perfectly well do yourself on the new gas piping. You say you've done a fair bit of pipe soldering before - well it's just more of it, really. Compared to a lot of car jobs, plumbing jobs take longer but are easier and less skilled.
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