Mains water pressure booster

cianlynchali

Hi. I'm just wondering did anyone ever fit a mains inline booster pump. I have seen the stuart turner flowmate and the salamander boost online. Seems a good idea. It's really just to get the water from the kitchen into the attic due to bad pressure on the mains.
Anyone use these before?.

Wearb

cianlynchali wrote: »

Hi. I'm just wondering did anyone ever fit a mains inline booster pump. I have seen the stuart turner flowmate and the salamander boost online. Seems a good idea. It's really just to get the water from the kitchen into the attic due to bad pressure on the mains.
Anyone use these before?.

Not a good idea. You need a break tank.

Think of this; your neighbour has his garden hose connected to tap and shoved down his blocked sewer pipe. You turn on your tap, booster pump kicks in and sucks back water from your neighbours hose. Yuck.

Sleeper12

I've never fitted one but there are some mains booster pumps that meet the regs & are allowed by Irish water. The Salamander Homeboost is one. It doesn't give massive amount of pressure. Its designed to bring your pressure up to something like a bar or 1.2 bar of pressure. It will also increase the flow rate to ensure that you can run a mains fed shower with issue. They aren't cheap. You need an Irish one to get a warranty. I think you'll pay around 500 euros for one in Ireland. Screwfix bring theirs over from the UK so the Irish agent here won't give any warranty with one bought in screwfix.

You can’t pump what’s not there.

You can fit a pump to help maintain the minimum flow rate the water board are required to achieve but I think that’s a UK reg because there isn’t a minimum here from what I understand.

You could look at a accumulator which can help maintain what you already have or as mentioned go for a break tank and pump which will give you very good water pressure.

coylemj

Wearb wrote: »

Not a good idea. You need a break tank.

Think of this; your neighbour has his garden hose connected to tap and shoved down his blocked sewer pipe. You turn on your tap, booster pump kicks in and sucks back water from your neighbours hose. Yuck.

Did they not include a non-return valve on our (now redundant) water meters? To stop anything inside my meter getting back into the public supply, as you described?

Wearb

coylemj wrote: »

Did they not include a non-return valve on our (now redundant) water meters?

If there was, that wouldn't protect YOU from scenario that I described.

coylemj

Wearb wrote: »

If there was, that wouldn't protect YOU from scenario that I described.

My point is that if there was a non-return valve on all meters, it would stop my neighbour's unwanted fluids getting out past his meter and into my supply. So in the scenario you described, it would protect me because nothing could get out from any of my neighbours' plumbing systems and back into the main.

coylemj

coylemj wrote: »

My point is that if there was a non-return valve on all meters, it would stop my neighbour's unwanted fluids getting out past his meter and into my supply.

Why ask? If you feel you already have the answer.

coylemj

gary71 wrote: »

Why ask? If you feel you already have the answer.

I don't have the answer, I'm simply pointing out that the scenario that wearb described could not happen if there was a non-return valve on each household meter.

coylemj

coylemj wrote: »

I don't have the answer, I'm simply pointing out that the scenario that wearb described could not happen if there was a non-return valve on each household meter.

Truth is I’m not clever enough to give you a answer, I can tell what I was trained to do, I can tell you of the difficulties I’v seen when pumps were fitted, I can tell you what good working practices are which is only to fit a mains pump rated at the minimum value required by UK regs which at the time I checked was 3/4 of a bar.

But I can’t tell you the full impact of putting a water supply under negative pressure when it’s been designed for positive.

coylemj

gary71 wrote: »

..... I can’t tell you the full impact of putting a water supply under negative pressure when it’s been designed for positive.

I fully understand your point. Which occurred to me when I read the first post, you'd be basically trying to suck more water from the system.

cianlynchali

I'm not trying to get more water. Just trying to get more pressure on it. The salamander seems the way to go.

John.G

The salamander may or may not be the way to go. The video seems to show that it will deliver 12 LPM at 1.5 bar head, the problem is that the mains pressure will start falling due to the increased flow and you may not get the desired flow though it is now boosted but you should IMO, certainly get a 30% to 50% increase which may be OK. Also ensure that you don't install it too high up as you don't want the suction (mains) pressure to fall below 0.1/0.2 bar as the pump will under perform or be damaged.

cianlynchali

John.G wrote: »

The salamander may or may not be the way to go. The video seems to show that it will deliver 12 LPM at 1.5 bar head, the problem is that the mains pressure will start falling due to the increased flow and you may not get the desired flow though it is now boosted but you should IMO, certainly get a 30% to 50% increase which may be OK. Also ensure that you don't install it too high up as you don't want the suction (mains) pressure to fall below 0.1/0.2 bar as the pump will under perform or be damaged.

I'm think i will go ahead with it. Any idea where I could get one. I'm based in cork

John.G

Google "salmander homeboost for sale in Cork" and you will get a few hits, you can buy it from Screwfix for ~ €120 cheaper but warranty period might be less. If you do fit it, please let us know how you get on.