Hi all,
We had a new bathroom fitted about 6 months ago. The company who did the work sent a bathroom fitter who had spent most of his life living and working in the Netherlands. He was a brilliant tiler and meticulous in his work (the job took 4 weeks instead of the quoted 2 weeks!) but we often felt that his ways with the plumbing were often a little unorthodox, because "that's how we do it in Europe".
Anyway, recently we had an issue with the Aqualisa digital shower we had fitted (the control panel was playing up). I phoned Aqualisa who sent an engineer last night to fix the problem. The first thing he did was turn the power off to the shower and pump as he had to wait 2 minutes before it was safe to work on. Whilst he waited, I went downstairs and filled the kettle to make him a cuppa.
All of a sudden water starts gushing out of the shower pump housing, all over the airing cupboard and down the downstairs walls. The guy from Aqualisa was in a different room at the time and didn't touch anything other than the power.
We quickly turn off the mains water and he isolates the pump. I was very lucky I had a plumber in the house when this happened! If this had happened whilst I was out all day or on holiday, it doesn't bear thinking about. It seemed to be purely random that it happened whilst the Aqualisa guy was in the house and the only thing he could think that caused the pump to explode was me filling the kettle downstairs and possibly closing the cold tap too quickly which I understand can send a reverberation through the system.
He had a look at the plumbing and it turns out that the pump is plumbed into the hot water tank and the mains cold water. This I understand now is a big no-no and is probably against water regulations as well. It look like he had tried to control the flow/pressure by half turning one of the isolating valves.
I have emailed the company who fitted the bathroom this morning and await their response. In the meantime, I wanted to get some further opinions from people here as its much better to talk to people who know what they are talking about so I can be armed with the facts.
Is it a big no-no to plumb it into the mains?
Is this against water regs? Can someone point me in the direction of proof of this?
What should I demand the company do?
The pump is a Stuart Turner Showermate ECO (Part No: 44420).
Thank you all for your help/advise. I am just feeling lucky right now as this could have been a hell of a lot worse.
We had a new bathroom fitted about 6 months ago. The company who did the work sent a bathroom fitter who had spent most of his life living and working in the Netherlands. He was a brilliant tiler and meticulous in his work (the job took 4 weeks instead of the quoted 2 weeks!) but we often felt that his ways with the plumbing were often a little unorthodox, because "that's how we do it in Europe".
Anyway, recently we had an issue with the Aqualisa digital shower we had fitted (the control panel was playing up). I phoned Aqualisa who sent an engineer last night to fix the problem. The first thing he did was turn the power off to the shower and pump as he had to wait 2 minutes before it was safe to work on. Whilst he waited, I went downstairs and filled the kettle to make him a cuppa.
All of a sudden water starts gushing out of the shower pump housing, all over the airing cupboard and down the downstairs walls. The guy from Aqualisa was in a different room at the time and didn't touch anything other than the power.
We quickly turn off the mains water and he isolates the pump. I was very lucky I had a plumber in the house when this happened! If this had happened whilst I was out all day or on holiday, it doesn't bear thinking about. It seemed to be purely random that it happened whilst the Aqualisa guy was in the house and the only thing he could think that caused the pump to explode was me filling the kettle downstairs and possibly closing the cold tap too quickly which I understand can send a reverberation through the system.
He had a look at the plumbing and it turns out that the pump is plumbed into the hot water tank and the mains cold water. This I understand now is a big no-no and is probably against water regulations as well. It look like he had tried to control the flow/pressure by half turning one of the isolating valves.
I have emailed the company who fitted the bathroom this morning and await their response. In the meantime, I wanted to get some further opinions from people here as its much better to talk to people who know what they are talking about so I can be armed with the facts.
Is it a big no-no to plumb it into the mains?
Is this against water regs? Can someone point me in the direction of proof of this?
What should I demand the company do?
The pump is a Stuart Turner Showermate ECO (Part No: 44420).
Thank you all for your help/advise. I am just feeling lucky right now as this could have been a hell of a lot worse.
