How to improve shower in a house with no boiler?
Discussion
Calling any plumbers!
We have a beautiful hill farm in Snowdonia, but one of the minor downsides of such a property is the fact that the nearest mains gas/water supplies are about 4 miles away! The plumbing in the house has been cobbled together over the years but is basically centred around unpressurised cold water header tanks. We currently have a ground floor shower (8.5 kw Triton T90si power shower) that draws from the first floor loft cold water header tank. It's pretty feeble in terms of pressure, and this doesn't seem to change much from very low to very high output water temperature.
We would like to improve this shower. Because of the nature of the house, the traditional best option of a combi-fed mixer is off the cards, so we need to be a little more inventive.
I am wondering whether one option might be to install a single shower pump to boost the cold supply pressure from the tank to 2-3 bar. I would then replace the old power shower with a 10.8 kw electric shower (cabling is up to scratch). The house is primarily used April - October, with only light usage in winter, so one thing in our favour is that ambient water temperature in the tanks shouldn't be too low when the shower is most used. Does anyone have experience of this type of setup?
I guess the other alternative would be to install a hot water tank and electric boiler, and then pump both the cold and hot supplies to a traditional mixer shower? However I am concerned that the loft space may be inadequate for this, and I guess the cost would be considerably higher...
We have a beautiful hill farm in Snowdonia, but one of the minor downsides of such a property is the fact that the nearest mains gas/water supplies are about 4 miles away! The plumbing in the house has been cobbled together over the years but is basically centred around unpressurised cold water header tanks. We currently have a ground floor shower (8.5 kw Triton T90si power shower) that draws from the first floor loft cold water header tank. It's pretty feeble in terms of pressure, and this doesn't seem to change much from very low to very high output water temperature.
We would like to improve this shower. Because of the nature of the house, the traditional best option of a combi-fed mixer is off the cards, so we need to be a little more inventive.
I am wondering whether one option might be to install a single shower pump to boost the cold supply pressure from the tank to 2-3 bar. I would then replace the old power shower with a 10.8 kw electric shower (cabling is up to scratch). The house is primarily used April - October, with only light usage in winter, so one thing in our favour is that ambient water temperature in the tanks shouldn't be too low when the shower is most used. Does anyone have experience of this type of setup?
I guess the other alternative would be to install a hot water tank and electric boiler, and then pump both the cold and hot supplies to a traditional mixer shower? However I am concerned that the loft space may be inadequate for this, and I guess the cost would be considerably higher...
Google for 'electric showers with pump'
How about something like this?
http://secure.tritonshowers.co.uk/electric-showers...
How about something like this?
http://secure.tritonshowers.co.uk/electric-showers...
I used to live in a cottage with no mains water, we pumped up from a well.
We went for the largest cold water storage tank we could fit and a simple vented copper hot water cylinder with immersion heater on the floor below. Mated in a Stuart Turner 3 bar pump to a simple Grohe mixer shower and all worked fine.
From memory our cold tank was about 50 gallons(220L)so you'd have to be in the shower quite a while to run it dry assuming it's filling much slower than it's being pumped out.
It'll take a bit of plumbing but cost shouldn't be too bonkers and it's a DIY job if you're handy.
We went for the largest cold water storage tank we could fit and a simple vented copper hot water cylinder with immersion heater on the floor below. Mated in a Stuart Turner 3 bar pump to a simple Grohe mixer shower and all worked fine.
From memory our cold tank was about 50 gallons(220L)so you'd have to be in the shower quite a while to run it dry assuming it's filling much slower than it's being pumped out.
It'll take a bit of plumbing but cost shouldn't be too bonkers and it's a DIY job if you're handy.
How are your loft tanks fed?
I have set two houses up to run an unvented cylinder where they have only well fed water via a whole house pump.
So what supplies the hot water to the power shower?
You could get a boiler and run it from an LPG tank/ cylinder or from oil, or as mentioned, an electric boiler. Do you fancy wet central heating?
I have set two houses up to run an unvented cylinder where they have only well fed water via a whole house pump.
So what supplies the hot water to the power shower?
You could get a boiler and run it from an LPG tank/ cylinder or from oil, or as mentioned, an electric boiler. Do you fancy wet central heating?
Do you not have a boiler at all? How do you get domestic hot water?
Have you looked at solar thermal? I have an undersized array for my tank, yet we get all our hot water from it from May to Sept.
I installed ours in May 2010, not touched it since.
I got lots of help from these people:
http://www.navitron.org.uk/products/solar-hot-wate...
Have you looked at solar thermal? I have an undersized array for my tank, yet we get all our hot water from it from May to Sept.
I installed ours in May 2010, not touched it since.
I got lots of help from these people:
http://www.navitron.org.uk/products/solar-hot-wate...
And if you need more than that, Redring do a 12kW instantaneous water heater - have put one of those in to serve a disabled shower and basin, it does both at the same time with no problems.
If you are looking t that sort of stuff, check the flow temps for winter and summer - summer can be a great hot shower, winter can be a great hot drizzle, depending how far your tank is from the shower, is it insulated, is it a "cold loft" or a "hot loft" etc!
If you are looking t that sort of stuff, check the flow temps for winter and summer - summer can be a great hot shower, winter can be a great hot drizzle, depending how far your tank is from the shower, is it insulated, is it a "cold loft" or a "hot loft" etc!
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