Kitchen taps help with water pressure.

ecoleman

ecoleman

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Any plumbers or anybody else in the know, I have a question for you.

We are fitting a new kitchen and I need to buy a new kitchen tap. It's a minefield as it is and I'm aware that I need to ensure the tap with work with my water pressure. Now the question.

The water pressure of what? Hot, Cold or both

My hot water in the kitchen is around 0.5 - 0.6bar (gravity fed from tank)
Cold water is around 4bar (mains fed)

I've found a lovely tap (after a long search) which seems to fit the bill but it's minimum pressure of 1bar.
Will it work?
 
1 bar is effectively 10 metres of drop between the roof tank and the tap so 0.5 - 0.6 bar sounds about right for a "normal" house. As for the tap working, I'd ask the supplier/manufacturer. If I had to guess, I'd say that it'll work but flow might be a bit slow.
 
I'd always assumed the quoted working pressure for a tap was a maximum figure, not a minimum and to be honest I cant see why a tap wouldn't work with low pressure coming in. My main concern would be the big pressure difference between the hot and cold sides, but I imagine you could throttle the cold pressure down via the isolating valve (or the main stopcock at a push) if it did cause issues.
 
Not very well.... you need a low pressure tap with an aerator and possibly a pressure reducing valve on the cold.
 
In a ground floor flat with a 1 metre drop from cold tank into the hot, and a similar spec tap. The mother in laws description of the flow was “ I can P*** faster than that”....
 
ecoleman said:
Any plumbers or anybody else in the know, I have a question for you.

We are fitting a new kitchen and I need to buy a new kitchen tap. It's a minefield as it is and I'm aware that I need to ensure the tap with work with my water pressure. Now the question.

The water pressure of what? Hot, Cold or both

My hot water in the kitchen is around 0.5 - 0.6bar (gravity fed from tank)
Cold water is around 4bar (mains fed)

I've found a lovely tap (after a long search) which seems to fit the bill but it's minimum pressure of 1bar.
Will it work?
Click to expand...

What about fitting a pump for the hot water? I think screwfix do some which will bring the pressure up to 1.5 bar depending on flow rate and are pretty quiet also for around the £100 mark.
 
Mozthecat said:
In a ground floor flat with a 1 metre drop from cold tank into the hot, and a similar spec tap. The mother in laws description of the flow was “ I can P*** faster than that”....
Click to expand...


The only possible answer to that would be "You probably can!" and a swift exit!
 
Thanks. Although I’m still non the wiser.

I don’t really want to install a pump. The plan is to replace the tank within the next couple of years with a pressurised variety which will negate the need for one and allow us to get rid of the shower pump.

I guess to be safe I’ll go for a tap with a 0.5 bar minimum rating, I just really liked this tap, although I’d still like to know what pressure to use.

If I turn on the hot tap and mix in a bit of cold surely I’ll have more than 0.6 bar pressure.
 
Last edited:
ecoleman said:
Thanks. Although I’m still non the wiser.

I don’t really want to install a pump. The plan is to replace the tank within the next couple of years with a pressurised variety which will negate the need for one and allow us to get rid of the shower pump.

I guess to be safe I’ll go for a tap with a 0.5 bar minimum rating, I just really liked this tap, although I’d still like to know what pressure to use.

If I turn on the hot tap and mix in a bit of cold surely I’ll have more than 0.6 bar pressure.
Click to expand...
You might find you get very little hot coming through.
Best to get a low pressure tap.
 
You're right, it is a minefield as we have discovered ourseleves. When the kitchen was installed, we replaced a two tap set up, which worked perfectly fine with a monobloc one. Disaster. Hot runs like a dribble (poured out before), and when mixed with cold, only cold comes out. The sink was in the same place, only the bits from the end of the copper pipe were changed. The hot tank is on the floor above fed from a cold tank in the loft. At first I thought they had left some sort of restrictor in place on the hot side but after a bit of research I found that the problems are:

- the 15mm pipes first run into isolator valves below the tap which restrict the flow (get full flow ones or use gate valves instead)
- the tails that connect the end of the copper pipe to the isolators have an internal diameter similar to a shoe lace !! this restrict flow further

So by the time the hot gets to the base of the tap it's being held back by the narrow diameter of the connections regardless of the pressure. Then many of the modern taps have a single spout i.e. the water is mixed in the base and passes up a single tube and comes out the end. When you open both taps to mix, the high pressure cold pushes the low pressure hot back and just cold comes out the end.

The solution apparantly is to use non-restricting isolators (e.g. gate valves), as large diameter connecting tails as possible and choose a tap with a dual flow spout (i.e. hot and cold run indepedently up the spout and only mix when they exit. I found all this on another forum where the person asking for help eventually went for a tap called Abode ATLAS Cruciform AT1053. I can't post a link as I don't have enough posts so you will have to search to see that one. We are going to go for the same one as the wife likes the style of it so that makes my life easier. We haven't installed it yet though. This has a dual spout and the connectors are 15mm (but seem to screw into an M12 hole in the base of the tap). If that fails then its a pump on the hot water pipe :-(
 
paulmck said:
You're right, it is a minefield as we have discovered ourseleves. When the kitchen was installed, we replaced a two tap set up, which worked perfectly fine with a monobloc one. Disaster. Hot runs like a dribble (poured out before), and when mixed with cold, only cold comes out. The sink was in the same place, only the bits from the end of the copper pipe were changed. The hot tank is on the floor above fed from a cold tank in the loft. At first I thought they had left some sort of restrictor in place on the hot side but after a bit of research I found that the problems are:

- the 15mm pipes first run into isolator valves below the tap which restrict the flow (get full flow ones or use gate valves instead)
- the tails that connect the end of the copper pipe to the isolators have an internal diameter similar to a shoe lace !! this restrict flow further

So by the time the hot gets to the base of the tap it's being held back by the narrow diameter of the connections regardless of the pressure. Then many of the modern taps have a single spout i.e. the water is mixed in the base and passes up a single tube and comes out the end. When you open both taps to mix, the high pressure cold pushes the low pressure hot back and just cold comes out the end.

The solution apparantly is to use non-restricting isolators (e.g. gate valves), as large diameter connecting tails as possible and choose a tap with a dual flow spout (i.e. hot and cold run indepedently up the spout and only mix when they exit. I found all this on another forum where the person asking for help eventually went for a tap called Abode ATLAS Cruciform AT1053. I can't post a link as I don't have enough posts so you will have to search to see that one. We are going to go for the same one as the wife likes the style of it so that makes my life easier. We haven't installed it yet though. This has a dual spout and the connectors are 15mm (but seem to screw into an M12 hole in the base of the tap). If that fails then its a pump on the hot water pipe :-(
Click to expand...

Brilliant. All good points to look out for. Thanks
 
0.6 bar is low isn't it? Out combi boiler starts complaining at 0.6, wont work below 0.5. It generally runs around 1.6- 1.7
 
paulmck said:
You're right, it is a minefield as we have discovered ourseleves. When the kitchen was installed, we replaced a two tap set up, which worked perfectly fine with a monobloc one. Disaster. Hot runs like a dribble (poured out before), and when mixed with cold, only cold comes out. The sink was in the same place, only the bits from the end of the copper pipe were changed. The hot tank is on the floor above fed from a cold tank in the loft. At first I thought they had left some sort of restrictor in place on the hot side but after a bit of research I found that the problems are:

- the 15mm pipes first run into isolator valves below the tap which restrict the flow (get full flow ones or use gate valves instead)
- the tails that connect the end of the copper pipe to the isolators have an internal diameter similar to a shoe lace !! this restrict flow further

So by the time the hot gets to the base of the tap it's being held back by the narrow diameter of the connections regardless of the pressure. Then many of the modern taps have a single spout i.e. the water is mixed in the base and passes up a single tube and comes out the end. When you open both taps to mix, the high pressure cold pushes the low pressure hot back and just cold comes out the end.

The solution apparantly is to use non-restricting isolators (e.g. gate valves), as large diameter connecting tails as possible and choose a tap with a dual flow spout (i.e. hot and cold run indepedently up the spout and only mix when they exit. I found all this on another forum where the person asking for help eventually went for a tap called Abode ATLAS Cruciform AT1053. I can't post a link as I don't have enough posts so you will have to search to see that one. We are going to go for the same one as the wife likes the style of it so that makes my life easier. We haven't installed it yet though. This has a dual spout and the connectors are 15mm (but seem to screw into an M12 hole in the base of the tap). If that fails then its a pump on the hot water pipe :-(
Click to expand...

I note in the technical details that Tap works down to a minimum of 0.2 bar
 
Byker28i said:
0.6 bar is low isn't it? Out combi boiler starts complaining at 0.6, wont work below 0.5. It generally runs around 1.6- 1.7
Click to expand...

Not for hot water from a roof tank in a typical house. That’s a physical drop in height from top of tank water to tap outlet of 4-6m. Get more with taller rooms, more floors but probably fairly typical in that type of set up

Your combi probably comes off the mains cold. I think most water companies target min 1 bar cold pressure at entry to house
 
Isn't there a law or regulation where the mains pressure has to be of a certain minimum? I'm sure I've heard of this before.
 
According to OFWAT (who should know!), the minimum is 0.7 bar, a 7 metre head.
 
So after a weekend of tap fatigue we’ve bought the tap suggested my Paul, the abode Atlas. It’s not what we really wanted but I don’t want to find out the tap doesn’t work as it’s being fitted.

Once we change the hot water tank for a pressurised system, then we’ll move this tap to the laundry, replacing a cheap basic tap and install what we really want in the kitchen.
 
Jim_Tod said:
Not for hot water from a roof tank in a typical house. That’s a physical drop in height from top of tank water to tap outlet of 4-6m. Get more with taller rooms, more floors but probably fairly typical in that type of set up

Your combi probably comes off the mains cold. I think most water companies target min 1 bar cold pressure at entry to house
Click to expand...

Cheers
I know we had issues when we first moved in as I didn't understand the issues around this. Pressure was showing as 0.8, I bled the upstairs bedroom radiator as it was full of air and pressure dropped to 0.5-0.4 bar, no heating...
Plumber came out and represurised with a bypass hose.
 
Byker28i said:
Cheers
I know we had issues when we first moved in as I didn't understand the issues around this. Pressure was showing as 0.8, I bled the upstairs bedroom radiator as it was full of air and pressure dropped to 0.5-0.4 bar, no heating...
Plumber came out and represurised with a bypass hose.
Click to expand...
You're ta
TalkinTalking about the pressure in the heating system. Thats completely seperate from the tap feeds in a combi.
 
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