Help Installing Shower Pump and Shower....

[danny2]

hi, just wondering if anyone could help me with a bit of a problem im having. I will try to explain as well as possible but as i am not a plumber myself, certain things may sound a bit daft or simple to the experienced ones out there 😱 i will just try to explain everything i can but anymore info u need, please ask away...

Basically, iv been getting a shower pump and mixer shower fitted, now the pump was a uesd watermill wasp 50 1.5bar and the shower a mira atom. my cold water header tank is in the loft and my hot water is coming from a hot water tank in the airing cupboard in the bedroom. the pump has been fitted at the bottom of the airing cupboard next to the hot water tank. so the cold supply is coming from the header which is 1.9m from the bottom of the tank to the pump and the hot is supplied from the hot tank with a flange also fitted at the top of the tank. the outlets from the pump are then plumbed back into the loft, across about 1.5m and then down to the mixer tap of the shower. now, when i put the pump on, there is no noise at all! basically like it was not on. there is also no water coming from the shower head, i have also unscrewd the shower and there is no water coing from the hot/cold pipes anyway. i have spoke to watermill and they have said, even if the pump was broken, i should still be getting some water out of the shower 😕 they explained that there might be a block in the pipes somewhere causing this. now i know there is water going into the pump, i have also lightly unscrewed the outlets of the pump and seen there is water there too. what i am wondering is, i believe there has to be a flow of water to trigger to pump to start, would there be enough pressure anyway to make the water travel from the supply of hot and cold, back up to the same level of the header tank and and then across and back down for the shower to even create a flow?? i hope i have explained this well enough and i am aware its a bit of a big question for a first post, its just im a bit up the wall with it all as my plumber is saying the pump must be broke and buy a new one (the person i bought the pump from insists that it is working 100%).

any help here is much appreciated

thanks again in advance
danny

 

[Spike295]

Check the ends of the hoses coming from the pump to see if they are fitted with isolation valves, alot of them are black plastic push fit ends & the isolation valves(just a small circle with a slot thru the middle) are not to clearly visible unless you know what they are. If you do find these, insert a srewdriver into the slot & turn a 1/4 of a turn, the slot should run in line with the hose.
Failing this & assuming the pump definately works, i would say it is airlocked. Can the pipes that run back up into the loft be disconnected easily, if so...switch off the pumps electrical supply & break a joint in the loft to release the air, do not take fully apart, just enough for air to escape hopefully folllowed by a drop of water. If you can get it this far, switch the pump back on & you should have enough movement to trigger the flow switches & get the shower working..you may have to do this to both hot & cold pipes.

 

[danny2]

thanks for all the replies so far everyone, plumber came out last night and had a quick look in the loft and a play with something, think he said his pipes were running slightly up when going along loft which he changed but did nothing. he said he was coming again on monday to insert 2 automatic T junctions (i think that he said anyway) which would release and air in the pipes in the future. hope this does something cos could really do with getting the shower going...

 

[PlumbBobBob]

sounds like a step in the right direction. what he is doing is fitting automatic air valves into the pipes to sort the airlock out.

 

[danny2]

sure hope so steve, doing my head in now, could really do with it being finished ha. thanks again.

 

[danny2]

just out of curiosity how much about would it cost for 2 automatic air valves?

 

[danny2]

hi all, thanks for all the info given, and steveb you were correct from the start mate, airlock it was, thanks again. danny

 

[Roskop100]

Ive had a couple of problems with shower pumps down the years. Last year I started to specify Stuart Turner Universal pumps. They are brilliant. Plumb them in, wire them up and of you go. Quiet as well. I never fit anything but them now.

 

[PlumbRight]

I've installed several pumps in the same type of installation as this, with the pipes going back up into the loft you are probably in a negative head situation. To check this measure the height from the bottom of your cold water storage tank to the pipes that come back up into the loft, if you have less than 600mm then you are in a negative head situation.

Regardless of this I would fit a Salamander ESP 50 pump, they are quiet and powerfull and will intellegently work out if the system needs to work in positive or negative head and set itself accordingly when you commission the pump, they really are amazing pumps and I think the best on the market.