How can I improve Hot Water pressure and Volume throughout the house?

[superflo]

I have a bungalow ,which has Gravity fed hot water, pumped heating system (S Plan). The house is 20 years old, has 3 showers (2 of which are fed by pump), 1 bath, 6 wash hand basins and 3 teenagers, wife and dog. There is a fight every day for hot water for either the bath or shower. Current state is that one full tank of hot water would do 1 bath (takes forever to fill up, hot water pressure poor) or 2 showers. This is becoming a nightmare, been in the house a while, wasnt to bad when the kids were younger, less demand for showers and baths. 😀 I also find that it takes forever to get the hot water coming through the taps in all of the wash hand basins. My question is, what are my best options to increase the volume and flow of hot water in the house. I did start to look at Megaflow Eco Cylinder, 250L? Thanks C

 

[ShaunCorbs]

What’s your mains pressure like eg pressure and flow ?

 

[superflo]

What’s your mains pressure like eg pressure and flow ?

Approx. 20 litres/min from my utility cold water tap and 4 litres/min from my kitchen tap, I’m assuming the utility is feeding from the mains.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Any idea of pressure ?

 

[superflo]

Any idea of pressure ?

Not sure of the pressure, other than 20litres/min. C

 

[Timmy D]

Do you know the size of your current hot/cold storage?

The below is just rough off the top of my head.
If you use a split of 60% hot, 40% cold usage for a shower at 12l/m the 250L mega flow should last for around 40 mins off showering excluding reheat during that time.

If we say the megaflow goes from cold to hot in 40 mins (I’ve not checked the stats, there are brands with a faster reheat), for 250L, that’s about 6L a minute. 6L a min x the 40 mins originally available, and we’re close to a full reheat in the same time it takes to empty it. So pretty much continuous hot water if the boiler is large enough to supply the required reheat energy with 1 shower running.

The issue you will have is that with 2 showers running, your flow rate can’t keep up. So even with a megaflow, the flow rate in each shower will suffer.

A benefit of your gravity domestic water system is that you’ve got another on site store of water to burn through before you’re only relying on the mains supply.

How much money have you got to throw at this problem? If you go with an unvented cylinder, ideally you also water to put in mains accumulator/pump/booster tank/s. With enough money/space, you’d be able to run all 3 showers simultaneously.

 

[spanner]

Definitely enormous mains water to replenish for a bungalow and unvenred type cylinder I would have thought. Just whether the installation would deem satisfactory where where required with safety and building regulations.

You may find the existing installation with pumps in place may have just slowed down over duration or INLET STRAINER may just need cleaning clearing to improve performance.