Hot water pressure tank?

kavelot

I recently moved to an apartment and using water here is too loud, even for quickly washing hands: the noisy water pump starts and after it's done the pipes still make some hissing noise while it reloads.

Shaving my beard is the worst, I usually just quickly open the tap to clean the razor, but the water comes very weak until the pump comes on and the pressure increases a lot, then 2 seconds later I'm ready to shave again, the pump comes off. Repeat this 10 times.

I'm not very familiar with water tanks, but from what I researched recently it looks like I have a vented hot water tank (probably ~180L). It has a green foam around it and 2 electric immersion heaters (one on night tariff, one on day tariff).

Is there ANY way I can fix this? I was thinking about a pressurized tank so it could serve as a pressure buffer for short water cycles and the pump would only turn on when the pressure drops below a certain level.

Does that make sense? Are there alternatives for apartments?

Thanks!

DGOBS

Assuming your incoming mains has adequate pressure you could look at moving to an unvented cylinder, which would mean all taps in the house would be at mains pressure without the need for a booster pump.

The main draw back to this is you now have zero water storage, so if there was an interruption to supply, you would not have any reserve.

John.G

Just switch off the power to your pump and see if you get a a flow from both the hot and the cold, I know a few people who have installed a switch to the pump and only switch it on when they require a shower.
You may not get a flow depending on the pump type or if the cold water header tank is too low but well worth trying. You can simply switch off a circuit breaker for the pump or whatever to do your test and then get a suitable switch installed.

Re noisy pump, check that flexible pipes are installed, also pump make/model?.

Car99

What is the pump resting on? You could try a bit of vibration isolation pad under it and box the pump it self in using sound absorbent materials leaving enough space for pump cooling if necessary.

kavelot

Thanks for the answers!
Unfortunately the pressure from the mains is too low (the apartment being on the 6th floor probably doesn't help)

I'm ok with having the pump, but I wish it only turned on a few times a day (e.g. shower), not for every drop of water.
I heard about those bladder pressured tanks; would something like that work? Or maybe some pressure vessel between the pump and the tank.

John.G

A bit confusing, is the pump boosting the mains pressure or is it boosting the pressure from a cold water storage tank in your apartment which in turn is kept full by the mains?, if so then the pump will be boosting both the cold and the hot but you might still get reduced flows with the pump off.

kavelot

John.G wrote: »

is the pump boosting the mains pressure or is it boosting the pressure from a cold water storage tank in your apartment which in turn is kept full by the mains?/QUOTE]

If I'm not mistaken, it's boosting the pressure from a cold water storage tank which is kept full by the mains

The reason I believe that is that I can feel the pressure for both the cold and hot water.
Also, when I flush the toilet:
1) pump comes on
2) toilet tank is refilled
3) pump comes off
4) I can hear the water tank slowly refilling for ~1min or so (but the pump is off, so I guess this is from mains cold water)

DesperateDan

I would add sound absorbing panels to where the pump is located, and seal up the doors to it. You can also buy little vibration jackets for them so see if your model has anything. That's what we're looking at doing.

John.G

kavelot wrote: »

John.G wrote: »

is the pump boosting the mains pressure or is it boosting the pressure from a cold water storage tank in your apartment which in turn is kept full by the mains?/QUOTE]

If I'm not mistaken, it's boosting the pressure from a cold water storage tank which is kept full by the mains

The reason I believe that is that I can feel the pressure for both the cold and hot water.
Also, when I flush the toilet:
1) pump comes on
2) toilet tank is refilled
3) pump comes off
4) I can hear the water tank slowly refilling for ~1min or so (but the pump is off, so I guess this is from mains cold water)

OK, well if that storage tank is higher than the pump you should get a reduced hot&cold flow from the taps with the pump switched off manually, if so, you could just run the pump for a minute or so to get hot water through/at the tap and then switch off your pump.

If the pump has a little cylinderical pressure vessel mounted on top (negative head pump) then unlikely that you will get gravity flow.

DGOBS

Sounds like those combo tanks John

John.G

Could be one of those alright so if coupled to a negative head pump probably no gravity flow, a pity.

kavelot

Here are some images if it helps

Apparently I can't embed them because I'm a new user, so URLs:

i.ibb.co/tps76nd/watertank.jpg
i.ibb.co/4MJh2KN/tankpump.jpg



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