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Discuss New taps, poor flow rate in the DIY Plumbing Forum area at PlumbersForums.net

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Fitted these new bathroom taps yesterday.
DSC_4270.JPG

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Hooked them up to 15mm pipe work which is on a gravity fed system.

Upon first use it was obvious the flow rate was much worse than the old taps.

Other than the taps themselfs, the only difference was that i had to fit a 15-10 mm reducer from the copper to the flexi tails.

I want to try fitting different flexis that dont need the 10mm reducer and maybe have a larger internal bore size.
Do you think that would. Gelp imporve the flow?

Trying to work out the spec on the current flexis that came with the taps but not having much luck....
I can see what looks like the following stamped on the spigots in very small text:

"softplex70 10bar
12 DN6 191218"
Is anyone able to decipher the bore size from that?
 
They won't work, even with a different flexi setup.
In the bathroom with a Cold storage tank in the loft, you'll be lucky if you've got 2 mtr head, that's 0.2 bar.

Some modern stylish mixers state 0.2 minimum, most are 0.5, but that just means the pressure to allow water to flow, not a decent flow.

I've got 0.7 mtr head at my own kitchen sink with a 0.2 stated minimum head mixer tap.
The hot flow is adequate but by no means decent and I had to drill out the waterway within the hot side to get that, it was 6mm it's now 8mm.
My Cold is on mains so is more than adequate.
 
I’d say they’re unsuitable for your system setup, what’s the minimum pressure stated they’ll work at?
This is what's specced in the manual.
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Seems like they're not suitable the based on your and @snowhead replies.

@snowhead out of interest is there and easy way to calculate the approximate pressure coming from a CW loft tank and also from a HW cylinder? Would avoid me making this mistake again in future.
 
1m head (cw tank) above the hot water cylinder is 0.1 bar pressure, so to get 1 bar tank would have to be 10m high. As you can see minimum is 1 bar and recommended is 3 bar.
 
Thanks. Guess ill start looking for a replacement.
Is there anything specific i need to use in my search criteria or do i just need to look for 'low pressure compatible taps'
(Obviously checking the minimum specced pressure on the taps with the approximate pressure im getting from my system)
 
Sometimes an internet search will return on “low pressure taps”, however it’s not guaranteed, so just check out the technical details.
 
The problem is the internal waterways including quarter turn cartridges, within the tap.
Any slim, designer style tap will not cope with low pressure.
The spout also needs to be chunky, not slim.

My 34yr old house had a monobloc kitchen tap when I first moved in, however it had 15mm pipe inlets to it, although probably only 10mm waterways internally, not 8 or 10mm flexis like almost all monoblocs nowadays.
 
Commiserations, I just moved into a house where someone had beautified the taps with this sort of rubbish, gravity flow, useless. Basically they should not be sold as unfit for purpose (IMOP).
 
It’s not that they shouldn’t be sold, it’s just that people shouldn’t buy them if their water system is not suitable.
Using a decent plumber will avoid this.
 
This is what's specced in the manual.
View attachment 75826
Seems like they're not suitable the based on your and @snowhead replies.

@snowhead out of interest is there and easy way to calculate the approximate pressure coming from a CW loft tank and also from a HW cylinder? Would avoid me making this mistake again in future.
On a set up like this I only ever give the option of a 0.2 tap there are actually loads out there.
 
Using a decent plumber will avoid this.
That's the problem I have been having, trying to find a "decent plumber" especially when moving out of area.
Of course i also suspect many of these taps have been fitted as a DIY job, my "new" house seems to have suffered 15 years of assorted botchery from the previous.
 

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