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GaryM21
I was staying with friends at the weekend & noticed a problem with both their showers. When using either shower if a hot tap is turned on anywhere in the house that shower will cut out (actually the flow reduces to a fast drip).
My understanding is that unless a shower has it’s own dedicated hot & cold supplies, which these don’t, one would expect some slight reduction in flow from the shower head when another outlet on the system is turned on, and if it were the cold supply to the shower being significantly reduced or interrupted I would expect the safety feature of the thermostat to kick in & turn off the flow to prevent scalding. I don’t remember coming across this happening if it is the hot supply that is affected, I have always thought the shower just runs cold.
My question is should a reduction or interruption in the hot supply cause a shower’s thermostat to turn off the flow and if this is the case what could be causing the supply to the showers to be reduced by so much now that both showers cut out if a hot tap is turned on whereas previously the flow from the shower heads just reduced slightly?
FYI this is a conventional gravity fed hot water system. Both hot supply from the cylinder & cold supply from the storage tank pass through a Stuart Turner 3 bar pump (although my friends prefer not to have the pump turned on as the lady of the house is a delicate flower & finds the force of the water from the pumped shower head overwhelming!)
The supply for all hot water outlets in the house and for both the showers & a bath all pass through the pump. All other cold outlets are fed from the mains.
Both showers are Aqualisa thermostatic, one is model E99, the other 609.
This problem only started about 2 months ago. Before then, with the pump turned off, the flow from the shower head just reduced slightly when another hot outlet was opened.
I tested the showers with the pump turned on & they both still produce a healthy flow when other hot water outlets on the system are opened which suggests to me the something is restricting the hot supply & that the pump produces enough pressure to overcome this restriction & keep the showers running even when another hot outlet is opened. Could lime scale build up in the hot supply pipes be the problem?
If I am completely barking up the wrong tree here can anyone help with another explanation.
Thanks
My understanding is that unless a shower has it’s own dedicated hot & cold supplies, which these don’t, one would expect some slight reduction in flow from the shower head when another outlet on the system is turned on, and if it were the cold supply to the shower being significantly reduced or interrupted I would expect the safety feature of the thermostat to kick in & turn off the flow to prevent scalding. I don’t remember coming across this happening if it is the hot supply that is affected, I have always thought the shower just runs cold.
My question is should a reduction or interruption in the hot supply cause a shower’s thermostat to turn off the flow and if this is the case what could be causing the supply to the showers to be reduced by so much now that both showers cut out if a hot tap is turned on whereas previously the flow from the shower heads just reduced slightly?
FYI this is a conventional gravity fed hot water system. Both hot supply from the cylinder & cold supply from the storage tank pass through a Stuart Turner 3 bar pump (although my friends prefer not to have the pump turned on as the lady of the house is a delicate flower & finds the force of the water from the pumped shower head overwhelming!)
The supply for all hot water outlets in the house and for both the showers & a bath all pass through the pump. All other cold outlets are fed from the mains.
Both showers are Aqualisa thermostatic, one is model E99, the other 609.
This problem only started about 2 months ago. Before then, with the pump turned off, the flow from the shower head just reduced slightly when another hot outlet was opened.
I tested the showers with the pump turned on & they both still produce a healthy flow when other hot water outlets on the system are opened which suggests to me the something is restricting the hot supply & that the pump produces enough pressure to overcome this restriction & keep the showers running even when another hot outlet is opened. Could lime scale build up in the hot supply pipes be the problem?
If I am completely barking up the wrong tree here can anyone help with another explanation.
Thanks
