why might my new shower be so trickly and hopeless?

[HellinArcher]

Just had bathroom redone. Have got new bath with bath filler rather than taps and new shower head, little bit bigger than the old one but not one of those massive dinner-plate sized ones.

Anyway, the bath fills soooo slowly, and the shower is rather disappointing. YOu can have a wash under it but the water feels like a trickle on my head rather than covering all of me in a lovely downpour. brrrr.

Clearly I need to get the builders back, but am utterly hopeless about boilers, pumps, pipes, thermostats, just don't have a clue about what I have got / need / should say to the builders. Please come and help!

What kind of shower is it? If it is an electric one the very cold water in this weather means your shower will run more slowly to keep the temperature up.

On the other hand, if it runs off your boiler, maybe someone just forgot to open the cold/hot water inlet stop taps fully.

did they fit a pump to the shower ? Is it switched on ?

not an electric shower, assume it runs off boiler. no new pump fitted, should it have had one?

I don't even know for sure what sort of boiler I have but I have a big green cylindrical tank in the airing cupboard, along with the boiler and I have a timing control for programming the hot water - I think this means I don't have a combi?

right I have actually gone and found the manual, and I have a system boiler. (sorry, I am just so crap at all this, DH was the expert on this sort of thing)

With a tank it sounds like it is not a combi.

Is there a tap or any sort of valve you can open where the pipes leave the tank to your hot water system? Is it fully open?

Sounds like you have a hot water tank which feeds the shower and if it is on the same level as the shower then that's your problem. The shower head is close to the top of the tank meaning the pressure just isn't there.

You need a pump.

thanks all for your help. have tried opening the valves to top up the system, but made no difference to the pressure.

I will talk to the builders about a pump. why they didn't suggest one when they were ripping out and installing a whole new bathroom I don't know ...

Sometimes showers have an internal governor - don't ask me why - but if it is opened, can be reset to allow more flow. Maybe to guard against super high pressure water?

Anyway, this has happened to me, and to my mum. I got the electrician back to open up the case and fiddle around.

Depends on whether your system is pressurised or not, if it is you dont need a pump.
Does the cylinder have any brand name on it, ie Megalfo?
Or do you have water tanks in the loft?

We have just moved house and have this exact problem. Watching and taking notes.

Am hoping it's something to do with the cold

Yes, low water pressure from low header tank.

Things you can do before getting a pump are making sure the shower head is specially designed for low pressure, and use a wider bore shower hose (B&Q sell one by the way).

I know this because we had exactly the same problem. We haven't had a pump fitted yet but we can now at least wash under the shower rather than having to move around under it to get wet!

I had this problem after new bathroom. It turned out the plumber had (of course) turned off the main water supply, then turned back on again - but not fully, so water pressure was low. I just needed to open the main inlet tap further, now have good water pressure. My main inlet tap is under the kitchen sink. It took me months to think of this.

We have pumps on our showers. In fact we have two per shower which is apparently very dodgy but needs must.

The reason is that water pressure from mains is very low. There is a test you can run filling a bucket with cold water and speed it fill indicates pressure but I can't remember how it works (blame wine)

Erm did you just choose shower or did plumber recommend? It's just that, and sorry if teaching to suck eggs, not every shower suitable for every boiler system. apparently is tricky thing to get right. We had right cowboy do ours and it works but is really shonky.