J
joeborg
Hi,
I'm dealing with a slightly complicated scenario. Essentially, my parents and I will be living in the same building; I'll have an apartment and they'll have the penthouse above me. For cost saving reasons and to save on roof space, our intention was to have a shared Solar Water Heater (SWH) supplied by water from a well we own. We'd then have two separate cold water feeds. In order to do this, I thought we could work using three water pump:
- 1 pump between the well tank and the SWH that would feed hot water to both of us (there's a T joint in the piping just after the solar water heater with one end going to my apartment and one end going to the penthouse).
- 1 pump on my cold water mains supply to my apartment
- 1 pump on the cold mains supply for the penthouse.
This essentially means there will be two pumps feeding each home. The (common) hot water pump for hot water and the cold water pump for cold water.
The problem we're having is that, at shower/bathroom mixers, there seems to be no gradual change from hot to cold water and viceversa. It's as though either hot water or cold water comes out. The explanation we've been given so far is that, due to the fact that we're using two separate pumps to feed hot and cold water, the pumps essentially end up 'competing' against each out. If one pump is on, there isn't enough flow/pressure for the other pump to also activate.
Given this situation, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the above? Is it not possible to have two separate pumps? If so, what could the problem be? If not, is there any other solution that would allow us to share the solar water heater that you can think of?
Thanks,
Joe
I'm dealing with a slightly complicated scenario. Essentially, my parents and I will be living in the same building; I'll have an apartment and they'll have the penthouse above me. For cost saving reasons and to save on roof space, our intention was to have a shared Solar Water Heater (SWH) supplied by water from a well we own. We'd then have two separate cold water feeds. In order to do this, I thought we could work using three water pump:
- 1 pump between the well tank and the SWH that would feed hot water to both of us (there's a T joint in the piping just after the solar water heater with one end going to my apartment and one end going to the penthouse).
- 1 pump on my cold water mains supply to my apartment
- 1 pump on the cold mains supply for the penthouse.
This essentially means there will be two pumps feeding each home. The (common) hot water pump for hot water and the cold water pump for cold water.
The problem we're having is that, at shower/bathroom mixers, there seems to be no gradual change from hot to cold water and viceversa. It's as though either hot water or cold water comes out. The explanation we've been given so far is that, due to the fact that we're using two separate pumps to feed hot and cold water, the pumps essentially end up 'competing' against each out. If one pump is on, there isn't enough flow/pressure for the other pump to also activate.
Given this situation, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the above? Is it not possible to have two separate pumps? If so, what could the problem be? If not, is there any other solution that would allow us to share the solar water heater that you can think of?
Thanks,
Joe
