Plumbing, Water Pressure and Pumps

[BrandonsBirbs]

We live in a mobile home park, it is not exactly pristine. Our main water supply is fed down a 15mm plastic pipe across a pretty far distance (unsure exactly but way over 5m). Our pump is a positive head shower pump @1.5 bar. When it works, it's great and the pressure is alright.

When it doesn't work we have no water at all, it's like everyone else has priority to the water and I think it is because of our pump. I am looking at getting a negative head shower pump to replace this positive head one but they're not cheap so I want to know it's the right decision to make. From my understanding, a negative head pump would have a much higher chance of success from a water system such as this one? The lowest pressure I can find (erring on the side of caution) is 3.0 bar.

Now the only issue is that I don't know if it's only us struggling for water some days, a lot of our neighbours speak zero English and refuse to engage with you, the friendly ones are currently away. It usually seems to be gone during peak times but for example today it has apparently been off/slow for most the day.

Is it worth trying a negative head pump or is it just pointless to even attempt this?

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

No comprende. Is a negetative head pump the same thing as a self-priming pump? Do you loose water because the pump is air locked and can not prime itself? If so, then yes.

It sounds like a dangerous situation and there could be health concerns unless everyoone has backflow preventers.

There are backflow preventers though I'm not sure the name for them here I know what you mean.

Positive head: A positive head pump is designed to be fed by gravity. It therefore needs a distance, known as a 'head', of at least a metre (three feet three inches) between the bottom of the cold water cistern and the pump. The gravity feed serves to kick-start the pump, which then pushes water to the shower.

https://www.anchorpumps.com/salaman...ors-with-noise-vibration-reduction-technology

Negative head: A negative head pump is used where the pump will be situated either level with or above the cold water tank. It then sucks water from the tank to feed the shower. This type may be needed in bungalows, for example, where there is insufficient head below the tank.

https://www.anchorpumps.com/salaman...ump-with-noise-vibration-reduction-technology


Hopefully this makes them a bit clearer?

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

By not pristine by the way I don't mean unclean, they just like to skip a few corners here and there. In places where they think it doesn't matter so much (most days pump works fine so easy for them to get this £100 one not the £300 one). The other mobile home parks around here seem to use a similar water system too.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Yes, a negative head pump is what we call a self priming pump. The pump creates a suction to draw water in even when it is running dry.

It would be a lot less expensive to increase the size of the main supply line than for everyone to upgrade their pump. I'm assuming the 15 mm pipe comes off a larger utility (mains) distribution line. But, that upgrade would require help and permission from the water utility agency or company and they would probably have to install a new meter as well. My guess is that this system was cobbled together over time and does not meet the usual design codes for such things.

Yeah I've tried asking for more details on how the main supply looks but I've not received much information back so I'm assuming as this parks grown they've just added and added without redoing anything.

So the negative sounds like it might be worth the try then... Thank you that's very helpful

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

There's a 2 bar and a 3 bar option. Our current pump uses 1.5 bar, would 3 bar be too strong? Pipes are all copper/brass and say they can cope with 5.5 bar but I'm not sure lol.

But, you know, if you install a negative pressure pump then everyone else is going to have less water available. It would be better for everyone to pool their money and upgrade the system.

Unfortunately I doubt the possibility of that, not particularly neighbourly around here. I'm sure they're all using them already which is why we end up with none!