Any plumbers in here know anything about pumps?

Getting quotes for a new bathroom at the moment, and one of the requirements is better pressure to the shower as we have a gravity fed system and live in a bungalow – so pressure isn’t that great.

All the quotes we’ve had so far are for dedicated pumps that sit in the loft (as we’re tight on room in the bathroom itself), and involve modification to the plumbing to run new pipes down an into a new head unit.

Just having a look on the Aqualisa site and see a thing about power showers. So it’s a unit that sits on the wall, with the thermostatic control, and a pump built into the unit – seems a lot cheaper that having a dedicated pump, and shouldn’t need plumbing modification from what we already have (as far as I can tell).

Is there any reason the quotes would all be opting for a dedicated pump over one of these power shower things?

not a plumber but i have the setup you are describing with the pump situated under the bath and it works great. pressure is amazing. fairly noisy but not a problem. it just kicks in when you run the taps or shower upstairs. its not even an aqualisa pump, its a cheaper one connected to an aqualisa shower tap mixer thing.

You can either have the whole system pressure fed or you can just have a dedicated pump for the shower.

The pump will enable you to pump all the outlets in the bathroom which opens up loads of modern taps which tend not to work on low pressure systems.

Also you will need to alter pipework for the internal pump showers as they all want the hot water to be taken off to avoid cavitation.

Prezet – and go for a brass bodied pump such as the Stuart Turner ones.

No room under the bath for the pump, like I said, we’re really limited on space – so apparently if we go for a separate pump it has to go in the loft.

Currently we have a mixer type thing on the wall that is fed from a different line to that of the bath taps – that mixer thing then controls the temperature of the shower. So at the moment we have no external unit.

Basically I was thinking of using something like this: http://www.aqualisa.co.uk/Our-products/Browse-showers-by-range/Aquastream-Thermo/Aquastream-Thermo-with-adjustable-height-head—chrome/?area=276

But the quotes are all coming back with a dedicated pump like this: http://www.aqualisa.co.uk/Our-products/Browse-showers-by-range/Mach-Pumps/Mach-130-Pump/?area=572

If we go for the first type, then I’m guessing we wouldn’t get as strong pressure as a dedicated pump?

Also, the quotes are saying the pump will be for the shower unit only, and not feeding the rest of the bathroom.

To throw a spanner in the works – how old is your existing hot water cylinder?

If it is reasonably old you will be faced with changing it soon if the water in your area is hard. Why not put that money together with the cost of a pump and change the cylinder to an unvented one, providing you have sufficient mains pressure and flow of course.

You would benefit from having better pressure at all outlets, no noisy pumps (and the last place really to put on is the loft because of that), a new cylinder which if stainless should last a long time. You may even be able to site the cylinder in the loft freeing up space in the airing cupboard. Added to that if you ever converted the loft you would be able to put an en-suite up there too.

Nice idea – but simply don’t have the budget for that. And the cylinder isn’t very old. Less than 5 years I think.

If you go for the separate pump be careful about the noise, particularly if you use it for all the bathroom taps. We have a “conventional” shower pump that used to do all the taps in the bathroom; the noise like Concorde taking off every time anyone washed their hands drove me round the bend so now it only feeds the shower.

We also now have a so-called “digital” shower like this, which is a far superior thing that sits in the airing cupboard and is virtually silent.

Rio, sounds like it had air going through it due to being connected incorrectly. Yes they are noisy but shouldn’t be that bad.

Most pumps I come across are fitted poorly.