Water pump in loft keeps turning on

[gavsw20]

We have a water pump in the loft feeding two upstairs showers and two bathrooms.

Over the last week it just keeps coming on every minute for about 4secs all the bl00dy time.

When this has happened before I’ve just ran the hot water on one of the taps for 30secs and it used to fix it. I’ve tried this yesterday but to no avail :(

Its a salamander model (£800 from looking online) and I’d guess c.5 years old.

FYI - The noise it makes is the same noise you get when it’s doing it’s job and feeding hot water to the shower / tap.

Does anyone have any ideas at all please as I’ve hardly slept all week.

[sweets]

My guess is that what it is doing is reacting to a drop in pressure by topping it up.
As such, one of two things is probably happening.
Either there is a water leak that is dropping the pressure by leaking water (from a tap or a pipe joint).
Or, more likely, there is a non-return vavle in the system (designed to hold the pressure, but which is bleeding water back down the system to drop the pressure.

Where a pump is sued to maintain pressure, there is usually a pressure vessel with an air reservoir associated with it, which holds the pressure and buffers it. Is there one in your system?

D

[adrianw]

If you have no leaks anywhere it must be a knackered flow switch in the pump

[CaptainSlow]

We have a salamander in the house and it's either a passing mixer valve in the house or a sticky flow switch at the pump.

[prexelor]

Can you not just switch it off at the socket when not in use in the interim?

(This probably a stupid question)

[gavsw20]

Thanks for the feedback. I will head up there to investigate this weekend.

Typically, the thing hasn’t made a sound since this morning !!!!!

[Mj2k]

Thanks for the feedback. I will head up there to investigate this weekend.

Typically, the thing hasn’t made a sound since this morning !!!!!

Our turner pump was doing it last year, drove us mad.

We didn't do anything quickly, and after establishing it was the shower valve, we had caused the pump damage from on-off so often.

It then basically imploded on itself, luckily without leaks, but no pressure.

Good luck with the resolution, the most annoying noise isn't it, as they are far from silent!

[Chris_in_the_UK]

I found out that Salamader are not great for longevity some time ago.

It will be the flow sensor that's on it's way out I suspect.

[MrBanks]

This happened to me with our shower pump, it was a slow dripping tap so when the pump saw the pressure loss it turned on to re-pressurise.
I ended up replacing our Salamander CT Force 30 with a Stuart Turner. It's so much quieter and more responsive, if you replace yours replace it with a Stuart Turner.