Unbalanced water for mixer shower

[joni2008]

Hi,

Does anyone know if using a pressure reducing valve for an unbalanced system will work.
It's for a mixer shower that has been fitted. It's a gravity fed system so the hot comes from the water cyclinder but the problem is - the cold is connected directly to the rising main. This prevents getting the shower to a suitable temperature and is useless.

I also have been reading about pressure equalising valves but these seem to be a little pricey and involves more to install.

Thanks for any advise.

Joni

 

[ProffesorPlumb]

A pressure reducing valve may do the trick. The cold feed should have been from a Cold Water Storage Cistern to the shower mixer to be fair, and maybe pumped with a twin impeller pump. Or maybe try installing a single impeller pump to the hot water feed.

Let us know how you get on

 

[joni2008]

Thanks for helping.
I've installed a pressure reducing valve (Honeywell) on the cold feed under the bath.
This still doesn't do the trick after messing around for ages trying to get the balance - if anything the shower is's worse and there was a loud knocking noise under the bath from the pipes - fiddled with the pressure valve and that stopped eventually. Also since fitting this valve, a few days later the hot water stopped flowing altogether - I had to back force the cold through the hot taps to clear the air lock (Hope this doesn't happen again)

I've decided to go for an electric shower after all the hassle as this will be the easiest to install without changing the system too much.

 

[bbb]

Do you know who fit the shower in the first place? If you do then I suggest you get them back to sort it asap. A shower should never be plumbed in with gravity hot and mains cold, whats going to happen if the local authority turns the water off whilst somebodys in there? You will get scalded thats what! A shower should be fed at equal pressures, hot from HWSC and cold from CWSC and then can be pumped if necessary

 

[ProffesorPlumb]

Bang on advice there bbb

 

[SteveO]

Thermostatic balancing shower valve anyone....