Countax Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 Hopefully there one or two plumbers on the forum that can give me a bit of advice. I have fitted a thermostatic controlled shower in the room above my detached garage. The garage has cold water feed from the mains and i have a 15mm pipe from the cold mains inlet feeding the the cold input on the shower valve. The nearest hot water feed is about 20' away and its a 15mm hot water pipe that feeds a sink in my utility room. This hot water comes from a tank about another 25-30' feet from the hot water cylinder which is fed from a cold water storage tank in the house attic. My question is how should i get a reasonable hot and cold feed to the shower? Can i leave the cold as is and just put a pump on the hot feed? Given the shower head is below the cold storage height feeding the hot water tank do i need a special type of pump? Should i remove the cold mains input and use a twin ended pump and pull both the hot and cold from the house supply? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Nigel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bathtub Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 Hopefully there one or two plumbers on the forum that can give me a bit of advice.I have fitted a thermostatic controlled shower in the room above my detached garage. The garage has cold water feed from the mains and i have a 15mm pipe from the cold mains inlet feeding the the cold input on the shower valve. The nearest hot water feed is about 20' away and its a 15mm hot water pipe that feeds a sink in my utility room. This hot water comes from a tank about another 25-30' feet from the hot water cylinder which is fed from a cold water storage tank in the house attic. My question is how should i get a reasonable hot and cold feed to the shower? Can i leave the cold as is and just put a pump on the hot feed? Given the shower head is below the cold storage height feeding the hot water tank do i need a special type of pump? Should i remove the cold mains input and use a twin ended pump and pull both the hot and cold from the house supply? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Nigel Pump hot & cold but cold from the tank not mains Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 I went for pumped when I did mine - I have two thermostatic showers fed by a single 3bar pressure activated pump in the airing cupboard. This takes hot water from the adjacent hot water tank and cold from the header tank in the loft above. It works fine except that it empties the header tank considerably faster than it fills. With both showers running you've twenty minutes maximum before it empties the tank Great showers though Other downside is the pump is a bit noisy. I think the tank problem could possibly be solved by fitting a larger diameter inlet valve, but I wonder if a better solution wouldn't have been venturi showers that take mains pressure cold and use this to suck in the hot at a decent rate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandyManLuke Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 what are you doing for more than 20 minutes in the shower? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orgasmic Farmer Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 I have a similar set up. Al the cold taps in my barn/shed/house are on mains pressure. I had planned to have a fully sealed hot wayer system to compliment (and will do one day) but things didn't go as planned so I have ended up with hot water running from a tank in the loft. As this is about 3 feet above the bedroom shower it was obviously ruibbish. I managed toi buy a one "channel" shower pump that boosts the hot only and it gioves it about the same power as the cold. I have the temp set about dead centre on the thermo-moixer so they must be pretty similar. I have about 15 foot of 22mm pipe from hot water cylinder to the bath taps and a 4 foot 15mm spur to the shower mixer. The pump sits under the bath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbocharger Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 I have fitted a thermostatic controlled shower in the room above my detached garage Now that's one hell of a 'home from home' workshop! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Countax Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 Pump hot & cold but cold from the tank not mains Bathtub, thx, I have 3x 15mm pipes in my utility room. One i know is hot from the house tank, one will be the rising main to the cold water storage tank from the water softener, the other i am assuming is the soft water supply back to the washing machines. does that sound right or would the 3rd one be an unsoftened cold mains feed for the upstairs toilets? I will check later today to see if i can correctly identify the 3rd pipe. If its softened feed from tank then it looks an easy job to plumb in a twin end pump. I guess i should feed the new sink from a point before the shower pump. One more question...I have an underground service duct from the house to garage. Can i simply use 15mm plastic pipes with foam insulation and strap the two pipes together at regular intervals to minimise 'knocking' ? Nigel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpb Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Hope this helps. Most pump manufactures will require a dedicated supply from the hot water & cold tanks. There is also a maximum distance the pump can be from the hot water tank. With 15mm feeds your limited to the size of pump you can have fitted. There is a minimum size cold water tank required in the house depending on the number of bathroom etc. The hot water temprature must not exceed 65 Deg C. Have a look at the downloads on this site at the fitting instructions. http://www.salamanderpumps.co.uk/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Countax Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 Hope this helps.Most pump manufactures will require a dedicated supply from the hot water & cold tanks. There is also a maximum distance the pump can be from the hot water tank. With 15mm feeds your limited to the size of pump you can have fitted. There is a minimum size cold water tank required in the house depending on the number of bathroom etc. The hot water temprature must not exceed 65 Deg C. Have a look at the downloads on this site at the fitting instructions. http://www.salamanderpumps.co.uk/ Martin, Thx, i contacted them and they suggested i call Plum-weld in Swindon, which I did. Plum-weld suggest i should get a negative head pump matched to my incoming cold mains pressure so i now need to find out what the dynamic pressure is. Actually this works out well as i found out plum-weld are on my route to work so it could be an easy solution. Nigel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpb Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Martin,Thx, i contacted them and they suggested i call Plum-weld in Swindon, which I did. Plum-weld suggest i should get a negative head pump matched to my incoming cold mains pressure so i now need to find out what the dynamic pressure is. Actually this works out well as i found out plum-weld are on my route to work so it could be an easy solution. Nigel Happy to help. They make good quality pumps & the technical help is second to none. The company I used to work for used to carry out all of there service calls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bathtub Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Bathtub,thx, I have 3x 15mm pipes in my utility room. One i know is hot from the house tank, one will be the rising main to the cold water storage tank from the water softener, the other i am assuming is the soft water supply back to the washing machines. does that sound right or would the 3rd one be an unsoftened cold mains feed for the upstairs toilets? I will check later today to see if i can correctly identify the 3rd pipe. If its softened feed from tank then it looks an easy job to plumb in a twin end pump. I guess i should feed the new sink from a point before the shower pump. One more question...I have an underground service duct from the house to garage. Can i simply use 15mm plastic pipes with foam insulation and strap the two pipes together at regular intervals to minimise 'knocking' ? Nigel If you have the money for around £700 Grundfos do a 200l pumped storage tank that will pump every water supply in the house to 3 bar.And the last 1 yes as long as the insulation doesnt get wet in the winter then it might freeze I have run a 15mm main from my house to th pool hse along the outside of the garage & lagged it . It only very occasionaly freezes in the winter & that is on a outside wall . Also watch out for mices eating the insulation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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