Home DIY

Depends on the boiler.

What size is your incoming main?

OH MAN no idea. How can I find out? I'm really worried now as my shower pressure is crap,
the pressure throughout the flat is bad...

Just used priority plumbing as they are really handy and have bits the usual plumbing merchants don't have. Sorted with a twist sewer pipe, that no one had in stock.

Ikea only do a kitchen tap tho ..

Tapwell look decent .. not crazy expensive too!

I need a set .. a basin mixer and a 2 hole bath mixer. Will dig.

A separate spout used to be the norm, maybe look at some NOS stuff?

Sounds like a plan - any idea where I look for old stuff?

I am all three guys, my expertise in disguise has fooled you again!

Your combi boiler heats water at a certain rate, that's a function of the physics of it's internal heating matrix. Pumping water out or into it faster won't change the number of degrees it can raise water temperature in a given time frame.

However, it may be heating water to a much higher temperature than you want to shower in so you mix it with cold water. If you can get your boiler to output a lower but shower worthy temperature at a high enough flow rate then problem solved no need to add cold water. Have a look on your boiler, is there a thermostat or setting for hot water temperature. The only problem is you want to wash your dishes at 65 degrees and shower around 32.

You can't get a pump to suck water out of either the boiler or the mains (thinking about this is I'm not 100% sure you can't suck water out of the mains) , if you had a tank and the issue was the height of the tank above the shower being too little then a pump would help.

I would need to know more about your setup, is your water mains fed is that where the low pressure problem is, how is the combi setup. It's possible your combi is just too weak to pump water up to the shower in which case a pump would help but you'd still have the issue of the pump sucking the water through the combi.

I've seen weak shower problems solved with new combi's that's why I asked how old it was.

Please. @Dammit is all about the 8-bit homage

Taps, FM Mattsson or Hans Grohe. I'm all about the practical with taps though. Mattsson have soft closing cartridges that cure water hammer.

3 hole taps as they are known are not that weird, just more likely to find them for baths and bathroom sinks than kitchens these days. Maybe you can find a bath set that suit your kitchen. Usually kitchen taps just have a longer spout so you don't bash the dishes on them, of course that makes them more likely to splash everywhere.

Would a deck mixer cover all three holes?

Sorry, I'm in Canada.

If you have a combi and want higher flow or pressure using a pump then there are accumulators or something similarly named you can fit I think. A bit like a tank which is filled at mains rate but which you can empty at a higher rate. Not sure of the details but it might be like the expansion vessel in a boiler for closed heating systems? Sounds like just another thing to go wrong to me though.
An electric shower will let you run up to whatever your mains pressure & flow allow - might be an all-round simpler/cheaper option?

Or fit a megaflow if you have room.

@chrisbmx116 who are your tradesy friends in Sussex and what do they do? I need a kitchen done by end of June.

Yes they are and yes they do. I'll ask for ya!

We've got a kitchen tap on our bathroom sink.

If you can work out the tapwell site then that might be your best bet

It's horror ey?

Is your pressure poor 24/7 or say during peak draw so anything between 6-9am and 7-10pm?

Chris, set your shower to cold and compare the flow rate to other cold outlets, eg. your bath, kitchen sink, etc. Do the same for hot.

Had a little play. Cold is slightly stronger than the hot. Both together are more powerful. But nothing is miles apart.

Cold is slightly stronger than the hot. Both together are more powerful. But nothing is miles apart.

poetry

It's difficult when you don't know the layout of your pipework and the gauge if each section, but it's handy if you can see a significant difference between where your shower is, and say, your kitchen sink. My flow rate changed from 1L/12s to 1L/5s when I removed the lead from my place the other week. (My scientific flow rate meter is a 1 litre beer stein).

SO what do these do then....?
http://www.showerpowerbooster.co.uk/product/fully-automatic-shower-power-booster-for-combi-boilers-3-year-warranty/
http://www.salamanderpumps.co.uk/pumps/home-boost

All the time. Takes a very long time to run a bath. Shower is kinda ok but not as good as I would like and I fear fitting a larger head (current one is dead small) will make matters considerable worse...

Just bought a large (150mm) shit cheap shower head to test...

some questions for you chris:

is your cold water incoming supply pipe 15mm / 22mm / other dia?
is the cold water incoming isolation valve (stopcock) fully open?
are there any section in-line isolation service valves? if so, are these fully open?
what is your perception of pressure and flow at the first cold tap after the stopcock (usually the kitchen sink tap)?
as rodabod proposed, carry out some timed volumetric measurements at various taps, both hot and cold then let us know the results
what is the btu / flow / pressure rating of your combi boiler?
when the equalization / cold water make up valve is opened to pressurize the boiler, what number does the little pressure gauge on the boiler go up to?

New house, new plumbing. Water tastes like tcp when drawn from kitchen tap.

Plastic hoses for washing machine and dishwasher run off from pipes just before the tap.

What is more likely to be the problem? The tap or the hoses?