Poor Hot Water Pressure

[Mexican in NZ]

Good evening all,

We have been in our first home now for a week, and the 40 year old home still has the original bathroom. The hot water pressure is very poor and makes showering unpleasant

The local plumber came around and he put in a new shower rose but it seems to have unbelievably made the quantity of water flowing out even less! Apparently the old rose is stuffed so cant be reinstalled.

Any one out there have any ideas? Pleeease.

Many thanks

[katandbob]

Good evening all,

We have been in our first home now for a week, and the 40 year old home still has the original bathroom. The hot water pressure is very poor and makes showering unpleasant

The local plumber came around and he put in a new shower rose but it seems to have unbelievably made the quantity of water flowing out even less! Apparently the old rose is stuffed so cant be reinstalled.

Any one out there have any ideas? Pleeease.

Many thanks

Hi, are you on tank water by any chance?

we have poor shower pressure - its ok at the bathroom tap but the showers not that great, its ok but not as good as mains water.

this is because we are on tank water - if we fit a pressure pump it would sort this out but its around $1000+ so at the minute I just take longer to get the suds out my hair.

It also affects my washing machine - its a F & P and it has a smart chip that recognises when its taking too long to fill so it stops the cycle and beeps! so I get home from work and its stalled beeping away! - Selextrix who I bought it off are sending for some low pressure valves to fit to it to see if this helps (for free! ) since its still under warranty.

Hope you enjoy your new home other than this problem?

Kat

[willsken]

Is it just the hot water pressure that's poor? Is it poor in the kitchen as well?

[jaycee]

I solved this in my first flat in the UK by installing an electric shower, don't know if they are available in NZ? Not the best answer if you have poor pressure in the kitchen too though.

Kat, is the pressure pump you have looked at one of these by any chance?

http://www.grundfos.com/web/homeau.n...ag/NLAN-5ASEA5

I saw one go on TradeMe for around $250, but had wondered how much they cost retail.

Adriana, you could take a look at the Rinnai instantaneous water heater mentioned in this thread :

http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10711

Again, I don't know how much they cost to install, but the saving on heating a tank of water may be worth it, as well as getting a decent shower (assuming your cold water pressure is OK).

I have the same problem, and my water heat is set too high to compensate - I haven't decided if I'll stay in this house, if I do I'll be considering one of the above.

[westies]

We had the same problem, then installed a pressure pump....now amazing, money well worth spending!!

[Mexican in NZ]

Thanks for your answers.
Yes our water pressure in the kitchen is poor too and is only the hot water that is bothering us!
We have a hot water cylinder.
The house is 1960's and it seems all that it is all in its original state in the plumbing area so prob what we willneed to do is changing the cylinder and stuff but really with the mortgage we are paying there is no chance we can do this soon.
About the question Kat asks me about other things in the house working fine... well, it is livable put it this way! haha! Floors need polishing or put carpet, i will definately chage the whole bathroom as it is in its original state also little things like painting and courtains, another thing is that we got a problem with black little ants but this ones have wings!!! never saw them before in my life but i am getting on to it with the spray...things that really need to be change asap is the bathroom and plumbing..which is a huge expense i hope in got this last a bit so we can find the way to save money and work this out...i am still not working back is back in bad shape and it is just very frustrated, but hey, is our house and is reason enough to be happy!
Love you all take care and hope u can help.
xoxo,
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[Mexican in NZ]

oh by the way the first post here was from my hubby, haha he told me to just keep it simple as "its his post" hahaha oops!

[sarahw]

Another thing you could do which is what we've just done & have found amazing (hot water pressure was abysmal here) is install an infinity boiler - hot water heater that's the size of a briefcase (we had ours installed outside the house on the wall next to the gas bottles - ours is gas but I believe there are electric versions) & heats the water as you use it direct from the cold water pressure to your home. Our hot water pressure is now equal to the cold water pressure because its the cold water being forced at temperature (which is pretty fast!) It has also saved us quite a bit of money - I reckon it might pay for itself within a year or 15 months - we've been using it for 2 months now & are still on our first gas bottle - looks like it will last us another month at this rate which equates to $25ish or less per month - family of 3 totalling at least 2 showers a day & a small bath for the little one a day) a month in water heating. It only heats water as you need it so if you take extra long showers & huge baths every day of course your gas useage would be higher - our last electric bill was $60 cheaper for the month than previously & I haven't used anything else electric any less!! Plus the added benefit that if someone has a huge bath we haven't got to wait for the water heater to heat another tank - just can keep on using infinite hot water...

[sarahw]

By the way - our plumber when we had our bathroom re-done said there was only 1 shower head on the market that we could use with such low hot pressure other than changing to a pump or infinity boiler - check that the shower head you've just had fitted isn't needing equal pressure - if it is then obviously you don't have this & that's why your shower has got worse rather than better with a new shower rose (we had 3 plumbers out & they all told us the same thing - I think the shower head was a methven that can deal with bad hot pressure).

[jess]

I had a problem with our hot water pressure last October (though my cold watre pressure was good) and only needed to adjust a pressure gauge on our hot water cylinder. Pieeater PM'd me with the details on what to do, and my hot water pressure has been great ever since. For free! Unfortunately I don't have his PM anymore with instructions. Maybe you could write for his advice...

I do have this picture I used at the time to figure it out. It's the guage that needed to be turned slightly on my cylinder. The one I needed to turn was the wide one in the middle with the yellow tag touching the floor. I turned it a little at the bottom, then ran and checked the pressure and then came back and turned again. I don't know anything about plumbing, but it worked like a charm thanks to pieeater's help.