Can someone recommend me a pump for my shower?

[philmots]

I've been looking at this seller.. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Ideal-Plumbing-Supplies-L... and i've not a clue what i need.

The shower is a Mira thermostatic mixer with seperate hot and cold supplies. The hot supply comes straight from a combi boiler.

Thanks!

[homeimprovements]

you wont need a pump as you have a combi, which means the hot is at mains pressure so run a hot feed and mains cold feed to the shower

Cheers

Nigel

[giw12]

I think with a combi you definitely don't want a pump..it could lead to all sorts of problems.

[philmots]

Cheers guys...

There's already a mains cold feed and hot from the combi to the old shower and it's very good as it is. I was just hoping to improve it further.

Some of the pumps above look specific to go before a shower from 1 hot feed from the combi and another from mains cold.

Although, if it looks like it's going to be a big problem I'll just forget about it!

Thanks

[jagnet]

You can't add a pump to mains pressure water.

Is the problem one of pressure or flow? If the former, and you suffer low pressure mains then really you're going to be looking at installing a break tank and pump before the boiler.

If it's low flow then it could be that the combi isn't big enough to provide an adequate quantity of hot water on demand, so you'd then be looking at installing either a bigger combi or changing over to an unvented hot water tank instead.

[philmots]

Hi

There's nothing wrong with the shower as it is. It's very good, better than any electric one I've used... I was just looking at improving it further. It's looking like too much effort/expense for not enough gain, though.

Thanks for your help :-)

[jagnet]

It may be worth trying an aerating shower head as a relatively inexpensive experiment instead. By mixing air with the water droplets, the water tends to break on impact rather than bouncing off which can make the shower feel more effective.

[Gingerbread Man]

A Combination boiler works off the incoming mains and as mentioned, you can't pump the mains. So a pump is out of the question.

Unless you start installing tanks and cylinders, which kind of makes a Combination boiler pointless, you can't really improve your shower vastly.

A Combination Boiler adds 35 degrees celsius to the incoming mains temperature. A bigger Combi boiler will provide a better flow rate of hot water, but the pressure is down to the incoming mains.

[-Pete-]

I'm not a plumber but what size pipework have you got running to the mixer, and are there a lot of 90 degree bends? If it's 15mm and bendy you could see a flow improvement by using 22mm all the way and try to minimize tight bends.

You can get a rough measure of the flow rate by taking off the shower head, sticking the temperature up to max, then timing how long it takes to fill a bucket from the shower hose.

Now try the same thing from the hot tap (or mixer at max temp) in the kitchen, and/or bath.

If the shower is appreciably slower to fill, then it's probably a pipework restriction to the shower mixer. If they're similar, then the combi is the bottleneck.

If you do change over to a conventional system with a hot water tank, then I can recommend Stuart Turner pumps. British, brass bits where it matters, beautifully made quiet and reliable.

[Gingerbread Man]

Mains pressure, no need for 22mm pipe work, 15mm does just fine. Just look at the copper pipe for your incoming main.

[-Pete-]

OK, that makes sense.

[Gingerbread Man]

:-)

If anything, if the system was once low pressure and is converted to high pressure, it make sense to reduce the 22mm pipe work to 15mm to reduce the heat loss.