Low mains water pressure

[Dave Johnson]

Hello,

Bought my house 3 years ago, a 50 year plus detached house on the coast of north west England. Lots of heating and insulating projects to do over the next couple of years. So I though I'd join this forum so I can find out some good ideas while getting my house up to scratch.

Currently I have a 22 mm black plastic mains water supply which is giving me around 9 litres of water per minute. The stop tap inside the house is fully on.

This seems low and I am looking at upgrading my boiler as it is too small to heat my detached house. But when you see boilers like the Worcester Greenstar Highflow 550CDi which has a flow rate of 25 litres a minute, it's hard to see how my supply would work with a boiler anywhere near close to this flow rate.

Is this something that is easy to fix please?

 

[SimonG]

Where are you taking your flow measurement from? Have you spoke to local water board about what you should he?

 

[Dave Johnson]

Read an article online, they recommended filling a bucket for 10 seconds and then measure the amount of water and multiply the amount by 6 to give you a rough flow rate.

Not approached United Utilities yet, again read here for example that 4.5 lites every 30 seconds as acceptable by water companies

 

[Riley]

I believe 12lpm is what they are obliged to provide??

 

[Dave Johnson]

Thanks Riley 🙂 Maybe worth a phone call to United Utilities first then

 

[Welder]

Hello,

Bought my house 3 years ago, a 50 year plus detached house on the coast of north west England. Lots of heating and insulating projects to do over the next couple of years. So I though I'd join this forum so I can find out some good ideas while getting my house up to scratch.

Currently I have a 22 mm black plastic mains water supply which is giving me around 9 litres of water per minute. The stop tap inside the house is fully on.

This seems low and I am looking at upgrading my boiler as it is too small to heat my detached house. But when you see boilers like the Worcester Greenstar Highflow 550CDi which has a flow rate of 25 litres a minute, it's hard to see how my supply would work with a boiler anywhere near close to this flow rate.

Is this something that is easy to fix please?

Before you start even looking at boilers, may I suggest you consider what your 'end game' is in terms of bathrooms and the level of insulation you are setting out to achieve. What you will find, is that when you do a proper heat calculation for your home you will be very surprised how oversized UK boilers are in general. Viessmann for example have told me the average UK boiler install is TWICE the size they really need to be.

Preparedness and forward thinking will save you one EVERY level here.

In addition,

 

[Dave Johnson]

Hi YorkshireDave,

Thanks for your help it is appreciated. This is a larger 3 bed roomed detached house that is one street away from the sea. The boiler is a Glow worm 28 KW boiler with 24KW on the CH. Similar to described here the boiler never modulates just runs on full power. I know that insulation will make a big difference and as we do jobs we are spending time and money on insulation. But the boiler is very expensive and the house is very cold in winter. The worst bill we had for a winter quarter for gas and electric was £960. Agreed we need to plan but the boiler has to be replaced. Done the online boiler calculators and they seem to think the boiler is too small. The reason for this post is I wanted to get the water pressure sorted before doing other jobs in the house.

 

[Welder]

Hi YorkshireDave,

Thanks for your help it is appreciated. This is a larger 3 bed roomed detached house that is one street away from the sea. The boiler is a Glow worm 28 KW boiler with 24KW on the CH. Similar to described here the boiler never modulates just runs on full power. I know that insulation will make a big difference and as we do jobs we are spending time and money on insulation. But the boiler is very expensive and the house is very cold in winter. The worst bill we had for a winter quarter for gas and electric was £960. Agreed we need to plan but the boiler has to be replaced. Done the online boiler calculators and they seem to think the boiler is too small. The reason for this post is I wanted to get the water pressure sorted before doing other jobs in the house.

My boiler doesn't modulate, but instead I have a compensated flow system...
Without a shadow of a doubt, every single penny you spend on insulation WILL be a genuine investment.
The kinds of boiler requirements I've seen for even old 3 bed houses are more likely to be 16kw. Remember, any online boiler calc is designed to sell boilers NOT save you money on buying & running.
You need a proper heat calc programme such as heat-engineer.com imho.

 

[Scott_D]

Can you measure from an outside tap or washing machine valve

 

[Dave Johnson]

Hi Scott,

Did this test at the kitchen sink and and also at the outside tap and got pretty much the same result.

BTW United Utilities are coming on the 10th of May. They did say their requirement is 10 lpm but will try a few things and see what else they can suggest. Where the pipe runs is currently mainly under the lawn but we are stone bonding this later so want to get what we can sorted regards to water pressure beforehand.