Water Pump now running on toilet/ hot water

pastorbarrett

Hey folks,

Appreciate any input here. Recently had some work done on the upstairs bathroom, had a water pump installed downstairs for the shower up there to work.

Problem, is now the entire house's hot water seems to activate the pump, as does flushing the upstairs toilet. Can we just switch off the pump when not in use, or is it actively needed by the toilet now?

Except for the shower, we had no water pressure problems anywhere in the house previously - we just wanted the the pump installed for use of shower upstairs.

I've queried why the pump now activates and plumbers gave me rationale about the house's plumbing being messed up before, and this needed to correct it.

It was a pricey job, north of 2k, but it seems it's fixed one problem and created others (the pump is noisey relative to bedroom position, and while we don't mind it being noisey for shower, we didn't expect it to affect other things that worked fine before).

Thanks

CaptainCoPilot

The plumber has connected the pump to the hot and cold water pipes in your hotpress.

To be honest, if this was my house I would have done it the exact same way as the plumber. To do just the shower only you would have had to run a new cold feed from the tank in the attic and put in an independent feed from the hot water cylinder to the shower. Then from the pump he would have had to run the hot and cold feeds direct to your shower. Depending on your house layout, location of shower relative to hot press, configuration of current piping etc all this work could have been a lot of disruption and would probably have cost a lot more than 2k.

To answer your question, you can turn off the pump if you wish and only use it when showering. They allow water through. Ask him to put a fused spur switch for the pump at a fairly accessible location and turn it on only when you are having a shower.

You can also get a rubber mat to put the pump on that reduces noise and vibration. They are cheap.

Wearb

Put a timer on it

pastorbarrett

Thanks for the replies folks. Plumber advised today not to turn off pump as can burn out over time. I'm not sure putting it on a timer would prove of help, as it still turns it off effectively? - this is the issue, it coming on in the middle of the night when used etc.

Seems us isolating it is now the best thing to do.

Lenar3556

pastorbarrett wrote: »

Thanks for the replies folks. Plumber advised today not to turn off pump as can burn out over time. I'm not sure putting it on a timer would prove of help, as it still turns it off effectively? - this is the issue, it coming on in the middle of the night when used etc.

Seems us isolating it is now the best thing to do.

+1 on the pump mat, it might also be worth looking at an alternative model which makes less noise.

The timer proposal might be that you press a button before you get into the shower and the pump is initialised for say 30 mins. It then becomes dormand again.

I don’t see why turning it off would give rise to any damage to the unit, but it would be no harm to run any proposal by the pump manufacturer. Incidentally what make and model is it?

Pkiernan

How old is the toilet that is now bring pumped?

I'd worry its not compatible with a pumped system, and may blow. Bad news if it does.

Plumber should have told you he was pressurising the whole house.

I had one lad do the same to me. He ended up pressurising a pumped shower. Had him back the next day to do it the right way.