Any ideas on how to increase the water pressure?

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Neil K

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hey all,

I have a Vaillant setup in my home comprising of an EcoTec System Boiler (637) and a UniStor cylinder (310 litres) as well as a VRC 470 Weather Compensator. When the system was installed we were not able to get a high pressure output from the system as the pipes coming into the house were the thin ones from the Water Utility company.

We couldn't change the pipes as our stop cock is two doors down in front of our neighbours neighbours front garden (so it would have meant digging up 2 gardens as well as our own).

Someone suggested that you could fit a pump to boost the pressure coming in from the mains. Does anyone know if this is true and if so what type of pump could I use and are there any issues?

At present the pressure is OK to have a shower with but only one shower can come on at a time. Ideally I would like to have more pressure as I feel we are not getting the best out of the system.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.
 
You can pump the mains, but only up to a maximum of 12 litres per minute, so if your flow rate already exceeds that it won't help. You're confusing pressure and flow rate. What you mean to say is that your flow rate isn't very good. Get your static pressure measured (IE the pressure with no water flowing). If that is high, there may be a solution
 
Very un-likely you will be allowed to fit a pump into the incoming mains supply. The reason given is that it could suck so such water it would deprive your neighbours of water while your pump was running.

You could feed the mains into a cold water storage tank and then pump water out of that at the pressure and /or flow rate you require. A float switch should be fitted to ensure that the pump cannot completely empty the tank when the pump is pumping more than the mains can put into the tank.

EDIT as muggles said
You can pump the mains, but only up to a maximum of 12 litres per minute
Click to expand...
This is not always allowed if the local mains are less than ideal.

A cousin living at the top of a hill was refused permission, the water board did however pretty soon improve the supply with a booster pump in the mains to the "folks on the hill". Fine until there were power cuts and the booster could not run
 
Hey guys,

This is great feedback, I guess it is the flow rate I need to increase. I know the VRC 470 controller you can tweak the flow rate so maybe that could be an option to increase that?

I was expecting my setup (similar to a mega flo) to be able to push a much higher flow rate. If I have to add another tank, what's the point of a mega flo system? It kind of defeats the name! And then it becomes even more expensive when you have to route the piping to the loft for a tank as well.
 
Wrong flow rate - the VRC470 won't have any effect on the flow rate of the water coming out of your taps, just the flow rate of the water in the heating system. Don't mess with that, it could stop your heating working properly

Your unvented cylinder is driven by your water main. You can't get more out than you put in, so if your cold water flow rate was poor before you had it installed there was never going to be any chance of things improving afterwards. As I said before, find out what your static pressure is, there may be a solution available to you but you need this information first
 
bernardgreen said:
Very un-likely you will be allowed to fit a pump into the incoming mains supply. The reason given is that it could suck so such water it would deprive your neighbours of water while your pump was running.
Click to expand...

Of course that is the reason 'given'.

It has nothing to do with the introduction of lethal pathogens into the drinking water supply due to negative pressure in the pipework. The pavements and roads are full of leaking waste pipes.

Alternate thinker strikes again, makes Wikipedia look like the oracle.
 
simond said:
It has nothing to do with the introduction of lethal pathogens into the drinking water supply due to negative pressure in the pipework.
Click to expand...

Of course it does, but mentioning that could give rise to concerns about the safety of water supplies. hence I mentioned only the reason given.
 
Have you tried your main stopcocks, opening them fully ?
 
bernardgreen said:
Of course it does, but mentioning that could give rise to concerns about the safety of water supplies. hence I mentioned only the reason given.
Click to expand...

But surely the responsible thing to do is to give the real reason - that way people might actually follow the rules!
 
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