Replacing Low To Mains Water Pressure.

If singing in the shower is your thing but you’re forced to yelp, shriek or slam up against the shower walls every time someone else in the house flushes the toilet or turns on a tap in another room, you probably have a low pressure hot water cylinder. As pleasant and necessary as a hot shower is, there is nothing more unwelcome than receiving a blast of cold water from your shower head!

If this scenario is all too familiar it is highly likely that you are experiencing either low or unequal pressure from your taps. This happens when your hot and cold taps do not receive equal pressurisation. This usually means that your hot water pressure is lower than the cold water you receive from the main water supply. If your hot water pressure is loaded between 10 & 50kPa then this will be the reason you have no consistency with your hot water.

Most new homes are built with mains water pressure for hot and cold water, however New Zealand still has a large number of homes that were built around 20 years and older that still have their hot water supplied using a low pressure hot water.

It is not difficult to double check what kind of pressure your hot water tank is set at. The easiest way for you to determine if you have Low or Mains water pressure in your home is to look at your hot water cylinder. If it is a mains hot water cylinder – this will be clearly marked on the side with “Mains Pressure”. If you search and can’t find any sign of this marking, then you are likely to have a low pressure water cylinder if is more than 20 years old, if you have a very weak shower or significantly lower pressure at the hot taps compared to the cold, or if you have a header tank in your roof cavity or a valve vent coming out the top of your roof, you are guaranteed to have a low pressure water cylinder.

On a whole, people do not like change. So why consider changing from a low pressure water cylinder to a mains pressure water cylinder? Well, over time, research and development at the cylinder companies never stops. There is such competition that the big brands are forever striving to one-up their competitors and this means that for you, the consumer, you get the best of front-runner technology when you switch to the latest in mains pressure water cylinders.

A mains pressure water cylinder will allow you to experience almost instantaneous delivery of high pressure hot water. There is a consistency with the hot water flow – you do not need to let the hot tap run for a while to heat up or to get a constant flow. If you are in the shower hoping to enjoy a hot shower then you can sing to your hearts content and no one flushing a toilet in another room, or turning on a tap is going to interrupt or destroy your bathing rituals.

For the installer – your plumber – mains water cylinders do not require the same size of pipes as low pressure water cylinders. This means that less room is needed to install a mains pressure water cylinder due to them having much smaller diameter pipework requirements.

Efficiency and capacity are both areas that manufacturers have put a lot of development time into. The older hot water cylinders do not hold the same volume of hot water that modern hot water cylinders can do. Most mains hot water cylinders now have a capacity of 180 litres or higher.

If you are looking to upgrade your low pressure water cylinder, then you will be pleased to know that mains water pressure cylinders are compatible with the latest of tapware on the market. As low pressure cylinders become less and less popular, their ability to function correctly with the latest mixers and tapware wanes. This means that if you invest in new bathroom or kitchen faucets, they may not work at all with an old style low pressure water cylinder or you could receive unequal pressure from your new fancy tapware.

The benefits of upgrading your home from low pressure to a mains pressure water cylinder are many. Generally, the upgrade is a straightforward procedure that your plumber will be happy to complete for you.

Europlumbing installed a new Rheem Mains Pressure water cylinder in a client’s home. As you can see from the pictures, the new style Mains pressure water cylinders are much taller than the older style short and squat shaped cylinders – hence having a much bigger capacity – and the foot print of the cylinder is much smaller which allows you to gain space in your home for shelving or a cupboard, which can be a real bonus in older homes where design did not allows allow for good storage.

So, whether you are looking to renovate, titivate, upgrade or are looking for options for a new build, consider moving to a mains pressure hot water system. Call Europlumbing today on 0800 832638 and discuss your options with us!