Salamander Home Boost, anyone installed one

[Paul Cockhill]

Hi I have been asked to try and increase pressure on a shower in a house in Bath. The house has a combi boiler and had 3 bathrooms and in on 3 floors. I have checked the pressure on all floors and the water main coming in is on a 15mm pipe. Pressure on ground floor is cold 9 litres a minute and hot 7 litres a minute. 1st floor is 8.5lpm for cold and 6 for hot, 2nd floor is cold 7.5 and hot 6. However when you flush the WC on the 1st floor pressure on the 2nd floor drops to 3.75lpm. The only thing I can think to do is to install a Salamander Boost pump after the main stopcock on the ground floor which according to their literature should increase cold water pressure to 12 litres a minute. However after speaking to their technical team they have said that I would not get this on the top floor but the pressure will certainly increase. Has anyone got any experience on this ?? or would you recommend a different approach?? Thanks Paul

 

[Pumpman6]

Caution: I think your gettting confused between flow rate and pressure. Any mains booster should be limited to 12 litres per minute to meet water by laws. The pressure is the force of water and has little to do with flow.

I also doubt you will be able to get a combi boiler to run 3 bathrooms as the combi boilers have there own limitations.

IMHO the mains booster pumps will assist with standard combi boilers/1 bathroom property but they are not a magical cure.


If your combi boiler is capiable of running 3 bathrooms the approach I would take is mains into cold tank, tank into pump, pump into combi boiler splitting to cold services on the way after ballancing valve giving equal hot and cold pressure. The down side is the cold water storage. If you do this I would recomend a bypass from mains to combi just in case the pump breaks down.

 

[dancinplumba]

Combi and 3 bathrooms......not a good combination

 

[mutley racers]

Combi and 3 bathrooms......not a good combination

Not a good combination. Now that's funny

 

[gassafe]

3 bathrooms!! A 24i junior should do the trick

 

[Paul Cockhill]

HI Pumpman, Thanks for your recommendations. You are right, the pressure into the house is about 3 bar, reducing to about 2 bar on the top floor. The mains into the house is 22mm and reduces immediately to 15 mm after the stopcock. I was worried that putting a booster pump just after the stopcock would not get the required result. The main problem is that the 3rd bathroom is on the top floor and therefore is that last feed of supply, meaning if the other bathrooms are in demand or a toilet is flushed on a lower floor, there is a problem with the supply to the 3rd shower. The combi seems to be able to supply the 1st and 2nd bathrooms without a problem, but a third is a problem. Would it make sense to supply the third bathroom only with a cold water storage and a separate pump?. And do you think that the Home Boost would make any difference whatsoever?. I have spoken to Salamader and they were honest and said the Homeboost would not guarantee 12litres a minute to the top floor but it would improve what it currently produces. Many thanks Paul

 

[Pumpman6]

Yes I agree with Salamander. Stuart Turner also fo a version but again they are limited by the water by laws for max delvery of 12 litres per minute. 3 story town houses typically (west london) all suffer with with lower pressure the further up the building you go (every 10 metres you go up you loose 1 bar in pressure. from memeory the local water authority only have to deliver 0.7 bar at street level over a 24 hour period so you can imagine go up 7 metres and you have no pressure at all, this is no good for combi boilers/unvented hot cylinders what so ever.


I have come across in the past combi boilers feeding ground and 1st floors and a normal vented system hot and cold tank with a twin negative pump on the outlet of the tanks pumping to 2nd floor, but then again you may as well use a vented system for the lot.


Not sure how you would use a pump for the top floor only as suggested as th pump would still need to push through combi boiler and if thats the case it would be doing all floors? Also double check output of combi, i doubt it will serve 3 bathrooms but as you can see from other reply's some assume it can.

 

[Mike Jackson]

I would look at fitting an accumulator or whole house pump like the Grundfos Home Booster.

 

[Paul Cockhill]

Thanks guys for some very helpful information

 

[chris watkins]

Thanks guys for some very helpful information

Have you thought about increasing the supply pipes from 15mm to 22mm this will almost certainly increase the flow rates, when two or more fittings are in use.
There still seems to be a lot of confusion around pumping, whether or not you are drawing directly or indirectly from the mains the 12 L/M limit only applies (Water Regulations 1999) to the requirement to notify the installation to the Water Undertaker (supplier) they may well refuse if it is directly drawn but will normally agree if a booster pump is installed indirectly i.e. the use of a break cistern.