Shower Pump Problems and Getting Hot and Cold to Mix Correctly All aspects of plumbing questions and answers, help, tips and information

[Chrisb57]

Hi I have installed a new shower, consisting of a mixer and rain head. As I live in a bungalow, there is not a lot of pressure, so I have installed a dual, hot and cold shower pump. But although the shower pump runs ok, and I do get pumped hot and cold water, I cant get it to mix properly.

I turn it full to cold, and I get cold, I turn it to hot, and I get hot, but I do get anything imbetween. i turn the mixer very slowly, and depending on which end of the range I start with, it stays boiling hot, or freezing cold, all through the range, until it finishes at the opposite end.

No way can i get a happy temperature in the middle, whatever I do. Can anyone suggest what I can do.

Regards
Chris

[thedoctor]

Hi

It sounds like there is a faulty mixer valve involved or the pressure is not correctly balanced

We have a couple of projects that can be found here that may be useful to you in respect to pressure balancing:

https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/prvs.htm
https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/wa ... oblems.htm

The only real way to test for a faulty mixer is to replace it and see if you get the same issue

Hope this helps

[Chrisb57]

I would agree, it does sound like a faulty mixer, but it is brand new, and shouldn't be faulty.

[thedoctor]

Yes, it could be, you do occasionally get a duff one from the factory, but also worth looking at the pressure

[Chrisb57]

Don't know what you mean by pressure, the whole problem was down to not enough pressure. That's why I bought a pump. The pump works fine, and I get loads of pressure.

[thedoctor]

There may now be too much pressure in the system overall or to one of the feeds e.g. too much hot pressure, too much cold pressure, worth checking how much there is in the system and also the operating pressures for the mixer itself