Low water pressure - talk to me about pumps

[bellabelly]

Hi, we have just had our bathroom updated after 10 years of living with the previous owner's 1980s one. It looks fab and I am so, so pleased with it. Except, our plumber noticed after he'd fitted the shiny new mixer tap link to tap here but this is not the shop we bought it from on the lovely new basin that the water flow was pretty feeble. He told me that he thinks the tap is designed for higher water pressure than we have (our water tank is in the loft and there's not much of a drop to the bathroom).

I have searched the tap online and it does state that it's low pressure, suitable for plumbing systems with minimum 0.2 bar pressure. I don't know what our water pressure is but never had any issues with our old taps running slowly.

The plumber suggested I might want to contact the bathroom shop - he felt that they should have mentioned the pressure requirement when we were chatting about what we needed. I thought that it wouldn't bother me as the tap does work, it's just that the flow is weak but you can use the tap so I said I'd leave it.

Anyway, lovely plumber finished the job a week ago (and is on holiday at the moment so I can't call him for advice just yet). I have been finding the tap more and more annoying. I mentioned it to my husband last night and he admitted that he's been finding it really annoying too. We won't be able to return it to the bathroom shop as they won't accept returns of items that have been fitted. I love the way it looks so would ideally like to find a way to keep it and increase the water pressure.

Sorry, that was long! Does anyone know about getting a pump installed? How does it work and where does it go? Is it expensive / big job? Will getting a pump fitted be the answer to my problem or do I need to ask the plumber to remove the tap and replace with something else? Any recommendations / advice would be really helpful.

Pretty much all new taps need mains pressure, that's 2 bar and above, to get a decent flow through them. Your tap may work at 0.2bar but it's obviously less than what you expected.
For reference, 1bar water pressure equates to the bottom of your loft cold water tank being 10 meters above your bathroom tap.
0.2bar is about 2 meters between taps and the bottom of the cold water tank in the loft.
Is there poor flow on the hot and cold at the basin tap?
Fitting a pump may mean pumping the entire house or just the bathroom. It depends on how the plumbing has been done.
If the whole house is pumped, every tine you open a tap you will hear the pump.

Thanks for replying, Isitabirdisitaplane! The basin tap is a mixer tap and the flow is poor for both hot and cold - it's a bit better when twisted to the middle setting, presumably because it's getting water from both the hot and the cold tanks.

The flow from all of our taps downstairs is fine (they are old taps and obviously there's much more of a drop from the loft so pressure will be better). So maybe we wouldn't need to pump the whole house. (Or not until we want to update the 1980s kitchen...)

Have a chat with your plumber when he's back off his jolly days. Maybe sort the pressure issue out when you sort out the rest of the house.

We put in a pump ourselves. It served the mixer tap only. It was quick and easy and solved the problem completely.

Thanks ShowOfHands, that's very encouraging to hear!

Isitabird, will do that. It's taken us 10 years to get round to sorting the bathroom so I just want it to be right. Hopefully it won't take us another ten years to sort the kitchen!

A pump will be noisy and annoying. I think you should get a less avant-garde tap.

Style or function? You choose.

We have a pump in the loft. It’s very noisy for short periods when it’s running- particularly if you’re in the spare room. We even avoid flushing the loo at night too much! It has made a great difference to the shower though.

Our plumber built a high platform in our loft space to raise the cold water tank and that helped a lot!

We have a pump but it is very noisy - I cried when they first installed it as it sounded like an aircraft taking off inside the house (I was 2 weeks into a sleepless new born so that may have also been a reason for the tears!). It was a joyful day when I discovered I could switch the pump off! We basically just switch it on now when there is more than one person showering now as it's so noisy - not sure that will work for you with the tap however. I'd definitely speak to your plumber.

Thanks all for your helpful advice. Lots to think about, I don't like the sound of the pumps being horribly noisy, that's well worth knowing.
@PigletJohn, that's the dilemma in a nutshell. I was so hoping that I could have both! My worry about replacing is that we'll end up unwittingly buying another unsuitable one.

I'm liking the sound of the platform idea, Izitso. I must admit that I have never gone up in the loft so not sure if there's extra height up there that could make all the difference. It's worth a look!

When we had our bathrooms refurbed, we were advised that the ‘European’ sanitary ware we had chosen wouldn’t work very well using our existing water tank in the loft. We were advised to get a Megaflo installed which means that all taps/showers etc could be used at the same time without losing water pressure. So we had the tank removed & installed one. It has been brilliant.
Could you do that?

How big is your family/house? We disconnected the cold water tank in our loft and all of our water now comes straight from the boiler connection. Made a world of difference and as we only have one shower, there was really never going to be an issue with that. That's the cheapest fix imo, but wouldn't work if you are servicing 3 showers at once.

Agree with the mega flow especially if you are going to be using multiple taps/showers as the same time

if you decide to change it, lie on your back and crawl under the basin. I think you will see two copper pipes coming out of the tap, probably the size of pencils. The may have flexible metal-braided hoses on them. There may be ball-o-fix type stop valves on them. Your tap itself has a complex ceramic valve cartridge. All of those things impede flow. Your plumbers may have fitted more service valves on the pipework in or approachi9ng the bathroom.
I use Bristan valves with capstans that wind up and down, and have washers, which give a better flow. But as you have a basin with a single tap-hole, I fear that full-size (15mm) pipes will not fit.

You may get some improvement if you change the braided hoses and the service valves for full-bore ones. Post a photo from underneath.

This is a poor, restrictive valve. if you look at the price you will see one reason why it is widely used. The other reason is that it generates repeat business by leaking when you touch it, or at random intervals for no reason whatseover.
www.screwfix.com/p/isolating-valve-15mm-10-pack/32802

This is a much better, full-bore valve. It is rather big. They don't all have fixed handles. If you look at the price you will see why plumbers don't often fit them.
www.screwfix.com/p/pegler-tee-ball-valve-blue-15mm/21860

To be able to choose any taps or showers, a megaflo or any other unvented hot water cylinder would work.
Providing you have sufficient water pressure and flow rates entering the house.
Usually 3 bar pressure and 20 litres per minute is required.
Your plumber should be able measure these.

@GoingDicey - it's not a massive house, 1960s chalet style that was extended (downstairs only) in the 1980s by previous owner. We have one bathroom upstairs and small cloakroom downstairs with just a loo and basin.
How did you get the water just running off the boiler and was it a big / expensive job?

Those of you suggesting a mega flow system, thanks, I had never heard of those. I suspect it will be too expensive to get done for the sake of one tap but might be worth us considering in the future.

@PigletJohn I had a look and the pipes are as you expected with flexi hose type. There are valves but my plumber said that he's left it with no restrictions. I will try to post a pic below...

Pic

you could change to a high-pressure system with an unvented cylinder and no cold tank, but as Isitabirdisitaplane says, you need good flow and pressure. Very likely your incoming pipe from ther street is a half-inch steel/15mm copper and would need to be changed to a larger pipe. This is not very difficult if you can dig a trench out to the road and have wooden floors with a crawl space, but more wearisome if there is concrete to dig up.

Oh dear, I think that just changing the tap is going to work out a lot cheaper / easier. Maybe I can save the lovely new tap for when we eventually get the kitchen done and see if it works OK downstairs. Thanks all for your helpful advice!