Why is my water pressure low
How To Fix Your Low Water Pressure Problem
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hello i'm roger bisbee from the skill
builder channel and i've been a plumber
for over 40 years and during that time
one question that's come up time and
time again is what can you do to improve
my mains water pressure and for a lot of
my career the answer was well not very
much actually because increasing the
mains water pressure required a
complicated setup of pump to break tanks
or
a new water main we now have a much
simpler option from salamander that can
be fitted in a day
and i'm going to take you through the
whole process from start to finish now
before we get started we need to pick
the right product from the salamander
range but if all this sounds a little
too daunting they have got a technical
help team to help you select exactly the
product that's suitable for your home
and that will vary according to a couple
of factors one is the amount of flow
you've got coming into the house already
and the other is the static pressure
which we measure with all the taps
turned off now it's important to say
there is a difference between flow and
pressure a lot of people think that when
you turn the stop cop down you're
turning the pressure down that's not
true you turn the flow down but the
pressure remains the same and that's why
we need to measure those two things
separately now
you can do this with a stopwatch and a
bucket and just run the tap for a minute
and see how many liters or gallons you
get out but the way that plumbers do it
we've got this thing called a weir cup
and we simply turn both the taps on the
hot and the cold in this case because
we're using a unvented cylinder
so we're getting around 10 liters a
minute but it's actually dropping away
as i speak if you turn another tap on in
the system this will drop away to about
four liters a minute which is no good at
all and if you're using this tap with a
shower running upstairs then you don't
get anything out of a shower
interestingly when i measured this the
other day i was getting nowhere near
that and the reason for that is that
your flow your mains pressure can change
according to how many people are using
the mains in your street for example
it's important that you test it various
times but obviously we're looking at the
worst case scenario a lot of people are
using water at the same time and the
pressure drops off so hang on to that
figure of 10 liters a minute for the
flow now we need to test the static
pressure
we've got just over four bar of static
pressure which is actually pretty good
and time was when people would have been
happy with that and a lot of people will
be happy with that but in this situation
we got three showers in this house and a
bath and what they're trying to achieve
here is they have to keep shouting to
each other i'm in the shower don't use
the water the shower at the very top in
the loft conversion if people are using
the water downstairs it just runs to a
dribble upstairs so that's really what
we're trying to improve now if you had a
simple situation where you were only
getting say five liters a minute out of
your mains you could simply fit a pump
and that pump would take you up to 12
liters a minute that's the limit that
the water regulations allow you to have
because they don't want you robbing
water from your next-door neighbor
getting too greedy especially in flats
it just depends what you're trying to
achieve but in this house with three
showers we want a lot more flow we're
happy with the static pressure and so
we're going to fit an unpumped boost
unit which actually stores that water
under pressure and then it releases it
as it's needed so what we want to do now
having looked at all those figures is
we're going to fit the very largest of
the unpumped acuboosts into this
situation because we've got that mains
pressure
we've got a reasonable flow rate but in
this particular house what we really
want is for people to be using showers
at the different times and people not to
be calling out i'm in the shower don't
use the water so i think that this is
going to solve the problem now i'm going
to show you how to fit it it's very easy
indeed so this is where the mains water
comes into the house and it comes in
through the stopcock here this has
actually been renewed all the way out to
the mains but unfortunately they didn't
renew the tapping on the main so that's
still a half inch tap in so even though
it's got this lovely new larger pipe
work going all the way through it's not
actually doing very much because we
still got that restriction at the mains
and that's the problem here that's why
people can't use two showers at the same
time so that's what we're going to solve
the first thing we've got in here is a
non-return valve now this non-return
valve is there to stop any water flowing
back into the mains pressure so it's an
anti-contamination thing if you like and
then after that we've got a filter or
strainer in here that bits removable so
if it catches any small stones or
anything in there that can be taken out
and cleaned through then we come to the
pressure reducing valve which is an
adjustable pressure reducing valve so
you adjust this according to what
pressure you're looking for in your
cylinder and then we have a pressure
gauge so we can see what we've got on
the pressure at the moment we're reading
four bar
and then these are the bits i've added
now you would normally only want if
you're using an unpumped unit you would
just want one branch and this would be
all that you would need it doesn't have
to be here you could situate this
un-pumped unit in many other places in
the house you can even put it in a shed
outside so long as it's protected from
frost you could actually have it in a
little outhouse beside the building the
idea of this is that the water will go
in to the accuboost the unpumped
accuboost it will pressurize it and then
as the water is required you've got that
extra capacity you've got an extra flow
rate which will be delivered back into
the system so that may build up
overnight when the pressure's high you
may get that accumulator building up the
amount of pressure there and then as
it's needed it will go back into the
system through the same pipe it doesn't
need two pipes same pipe in and out and
then it will boost the system now if you
wouldn't need
the valve here and you wouldn't need the
top valve and the reason i've done that
is because after we've fitted this and
we've seen how it runs i'm going to take
this one out i'm going to show you
what's involved in fitting a pumped unit
which is basically just another branch
and another couple of valves so all the
fittings that i've shown you are
included in the box so it's very easy to
install
now there is actually a captive rubber
washer in here so that seals directly
onto the inlet
we don't need to over tighten this
that's finger tight plus a quarter of a
turn
now we don't want any contamination
inside the accuboost cylinder so what
we're going to do because i've used
soldered joints here that are going to
be flux so i'm going to make sure that
we flush the pipe work out
so that's pretty good that's nice and
clear i'm happy with that also if you
use any kind of joint in compounds and
things like that that can also
contaminated so i'd say don't use
jointed compounds and keep the flux to a
minimum then just flush the pipework
through and you'll be fine now this is a
three quarter male iron there's a rubber
washer in here and again we don't want
to over tighten that hand tight plus a
quarter so the cylinder is all charged
up to the required pressure on the air
and we're connected up to the water so
we'll just gotta adjust that mains
pressure on the pressure reducing valve
just to make sure that that's a full bar
so now all we've got to do is wait for
this water to fill up inside this
accuboost that will compress that rubber
epdm bladder if you like and then all
we've got to do is go upstairs and check
those taps again see what kind of flow
we got see if it's improved so let's see
what we've achieved with the unpumped
acuboost
that's 22 over 22 so what i'm going to
do is turn another tap on and see how
much we get on the two taps together
now with the other tap running we're
getting 12 on here i'm going to go back
and measure the other one now
and then this one running as well
18 so we've got 12 over there we've got
18 there so that's 30 liters a minute so
that is more than double the output of
the the taps now interestingly there is
a restriction on this tap which is why i
wanted to put the other one on as well
because that because i got a small flexi
connectors you get this with a lot of
taps nowadays you've got that
restriction but even so you can see that
you've got a significant increase all
round and now we're just going to have a
look at that shower because that shower
was also
proving to be a problem and we're going
to see what kind of flow we're getting
from the shower
running these taps at the same time
[Music]
so look at this this is the bit that's
going to cheer the customers up this is
with the taps running downstairs turn
the shower on and we're getting a very
decent flow rate from that so that's
overcome the problems and uh i call that
a success and now what i want to do is
see what we can achieve with the pumped
unit
now i must admit that when i was
thinking about plumbing this in a cellar
i was thinking about how you drain it
because you have a drain and i
thought it's below the drain i'm going
to have to pump this out just to empty
it but then i realized no what is
actually happening here is that that
bladder inside if you turn the thing off
and you start draining it just by
opening a tap then what that bladder
will do is it because it's full of
compressed air it will squeeze the water
out of the acuboost and it should end up
virtually empty by the time there should
maybe a bit of a dribble in the bottom
there but certainly in this case i don't
really need to put a drain on it
because i could just disconnect the
flexible hose for that last bit and
drain it out that solves one problem now
before i remove this unpumped acubus i
just want to recap on what i said
earlier
this is when you've got sufficient mains
pressure you're over two bolt we've got
four bar mains pressure
the flow rate is reasonable and
what we want is when people are using
various taps and showers around the
house at the same time we want to
deliver that extra flow rate into the
house it's not the static pressure that
we're trying to build up it's the flow
rate now
we're going to fit the pumped unit and
the reason you would have a pumped unit
is if you've got a low pressure say
below 2 bar
and if your flow rate is not sufficient
or if you've got a tall house and you've
got a shower right at the top which
isn't getting enough then the pumped
unit will overcome that problem as well
now just bear in mind that you can get
different sizes of these units you can
daisy chain them together so if you
haven't got room for one big one you can
put some smaller ones in there and you
can also pump the unit so you can retro
pump if we decided this wasn't good
enough we could fit the pump very easily
to this unit so this is the very compact
pumped acuboost we've got flow going in
here through the pump and it comes back
out there into the pipework but we've
also got added flow coming in
from the stored water in the accuboost
and you can add a pump to any of the
units whatever you've got room for you
can put in basically so we've got two
flexi connectors in the kit short ones
and we've got a couple of washers which
are in the pack they're not actually in
the ends of the connections here so what
we've got to do is nominate one of them
as the inlet and we put the filter over
that one because we want to stop any
debris coming in to the pump but
interesting we've also got a filter on
there as well which um will collect any
big lumps don't over tighten the over
tighten you just damage the rubber
washers so hand tight plus quarter of a
turn will be plenty there
now with the pump unit we don't have to
worry about charging the pressure vessel
that's already charged to the correct
pressure
but what we do need to do because i've
been doing soldering is we still need to
flush this pipe work out
and one thing i have learned as a
plumber is get rid of that bucket of
water before you kick it over so just
make sure you get these the right way
around that's the inlet
going there through the filter the
arrows on there and this is the outlet
going back out of the pump
and into the pipe work i'll just explain
to you this is on this is the pressure
vessel one as an isolator there so you
can turn that off and up here we've got
exactly the same arrangement that we
would have for the un-pumped version
we've got another pipe that comes up out
of the pump and into the mains we've got
the bypass switched on
which is the water going straight
through
so it's bypassing this unit completely
the acupuncture isn't in operation
but if we turn the bypass off and we
turn these two on
this is our inlet
here we're filling up the vessel now
so if i turn this one on at the top
that's going to complete the circuit
we're now going all the way around
and
if we go upstairs we'll try those taps
again because this is only temporary
because i'm only putting this in just
for the demonstration if you like i'm
going to run it off and extensionally
but normally you'd have a nice handy
socket there to put it into and what the
technical people at salamander told me
is don't
run these through 90 degrees these flexi
hoses keep a nice gentle bend on them so
you can see what i've done just put a 45
on there if you like the main thing is
don't kink the hose don't twist those so
what's happening with the accuboost is
the pump is actually pressuring the
cylinder up until it's at the four bar
and we're going to see now
what we get
both taps on
oh look at that
so that's 16 on there but we know that
we have to have an accumulation because
there's a restriction on this tap so
keep that 16 and i'll just go and check
the other tap and see what we get with
that with this one running so we're
getting six on the other tap
so you can see from that comparison that
the un-pump unit is absolutely fine for
this house because we had that four bar
of mains pressure we've been able to
charge that unpumped unit up just from
the mains pressure alone and it can give
you up to 24 liters a minute so work it
out if you've got two showers that
should be plenty
pumped accuboost accumulator tanks are
ideal for systems where the flow rate is
below 12 liters a minute and or the
pressure is below 2 bar now in this
property the flow and the pressure were
above those numbers therefore an
unpumped unit was perfectly suitable now
the pump is there to ensure a minimum
flow and pressure are delivered into the
system if you've already got that you
don't need the pump the tank size will
impact the flow rate delivered to the
taps and that's why when we installed
the smaller pump unit with a smaller
tank the flow rate dropped now this
happened regardless of the fact that it
has a pump on the unit
i hope that explains it don't forget
that salamander has a great technical
department they will help you choose the
right unit for your home just give them
those figures tell them what your flow
is tell them what your static pressure
is and they can work it out so more
details of the full range of accuboosts
on the salamander website just follow
the links in the description
