Low Flow/Pressure

[hshah]

Having looked at your pics. I think the main problem lies with something you haven't mentioned, but a clue lies in one of your pictures.
you seem to have a water softener of filter. This is connected through 1/2 washing machine valves and small bore hoses. All of this will restrict flow. Could do with a picture of the softener and possibly the cold inlet to your cylinder.

I'll take some more pictures when I go back there tonight. I tried bypassing the water filter by turning the blue taps off and opening the valve in between. However I did notice that I can't seem to shut it off... with the softener taps off water was still flowing to the tap in the sink above.

 

[hshah]

Having looked at your pics. I think the main problem lies with something you haven't mentioned, but a clue lies in one of your pictures.
you seem to have a water softener of filter. This is connected through 1/2 washing machine valves and small bore hoses. All of this will restrict flow. Could do with a picture of the softener and possibly the cold inlet to your cylinder.

Pictures added to my hosting. I tried bypassing the water filter by turning the blue taps off and opening the valve in between. However I did notice that I can't seem to shut it off... with the softener taps off water was still flowing to the tap in the sink above.

 

[Riley]

Is the filter/softener under the kitchen sink? If so, if it is a softener the water shouldn't go to your cold kitchen tap anyway as this should remain on hard water. I do agree though that this will probably affect your flow to the UV cylinder though

 

[hshah]

Is the filter/softener under the kitchen sink? If so, if it is a softener the water shouldn't go to your cold kitchen tap anyway as this should remain on hard water. I do agree though that this will probably affect your flow to the UV cylinder though

The softener is in the utility room, which also happens to have a sink in it. The grey pipe coming off the mains, just before the right most water softener branch is the one going to the kitchen sink. The utility room has the Megaflo and is where the blue mains pipe comes out... all the pictures (apart from the boilers) are from the same room.

 

[hshah]

Got jase158 (http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/i...oking-g3-certified-plumber-uxbridge-area.html) coming round on 2nd January to have a look. Fingers crossed he can sort it out 🙂

 

[jase158]

So been this morning, water board report 24l/min at meter, I got 18l/min at stop tap, outlet of water softener, garden tap, and after ISO to taps.

8l/min from all downstairs outlets, 6l/min from upstairs.
2 x taps on at same time reduces down to 3-4 l/min

same pressure on hot and cold
same pressure on hard and soft (except garden tap)

unbalanced hot and cold, so not a filter, multifunction valve or a pressure reducer problem!

so obviously taps, but 1x kitchen tap, 1 x utility tap, 4 showers, 4 basin taps, and 1 bath tap all the same??

All taps on flexis supplied with taps, all showers and bath taps wall mounted!

Any ideas?

Issues are:
not enough flow to each shower,
when in shower, flow drops dramatically if downstairs taps used causing risk of burning,

The balanced cold should be sorted but not likely to cause an issue at the moment!!

 

[dancinplumba]

And what is the pressure ?

 

[dancinplumba]

All you have given us is flow rates

 

[jase158]

2 bar at the garden tap!!

 

[Chalked]

Very poor water main for that size of house. Plus restriction through water softener and various restrictions in high pressure suited taps.
two fixes.
1 replace complete water main to street ( only if standing pressures are good)
2. Install break tank and pump set after the water softener.

 

[jase158]

Water softener not causing a restriction,

the question they have is if taps only produce 8l/ min, why can't they feed 2 x taps at once, surely 18l/min, split into 2 should be able to provide 2 x 8l/min taps!!

and surely it doesn't matter what's coming in as each tap only produces 8l/min maximum so surely 18 l/ min should be plenty to feed 2-3 outlets at the same time shouldn't it?

the only thing I can think is the poor outlets are causing mega issues?
from 18l/min down to 8 is a massive restriction!!!

 

[jase158]

And even more onto that, if the pressure was increased to say 30l/min the outlets would still only produce 8 l /min so why and how would increasing it make a difference?

 

[dancinplumba]

2 bar at the garden tap!!

Is that running ? What at other outlets ?

 

[jase158]

Very poor water main for that size of house. Plus restriction through water softener and various restrictions in high pressure suited taps.
two fixes.
1 replace complete water main to street ( only if standing pressures are good)
2. Install break tank and pump set after the water softener.

Water main has been replaced 25mm all the way back to meter!!

 

[jase158]

Is that running ? What at other outlets ?

Standing pressure!!

 

[dancinplumba]

Standing pressure!!

So what's working ?

 

[jase158]

Working pressure on mains 1.5 bar,
working pressure on outlets, around 0.5 bar by my calculations!!

 

[dancinplumba]

And stop shouting !!!!!!!

 

[dancinplumba]

Undo a tap flexi and measure it there with another outlet running

 

[jase158]

That's what I did, definetly taps causing issues