Why A Booster Pump Is Required In Large And Multi-Storey Buildings

When water pressure drops on the upper floors of the building, the obvious question is whether your mains supply is strong enough. However, getting water into your building is only part of supplying it – you also need sufficient pressure at the outlets furthest from the incoming mains, including those several floors above it. And you need that pressure to hold up when demand increases throughout the building.

This is why a water pressure booster system is often needed for large and multi-storey buildings. In this article, we explore when and why a booster pump is required, following what happens to the available pressure between the incoming mains water supply and the people using it.

Why is a booster pump required as building height increases?

The higher water has to travel through your building, the more pressure it needs to reach the outlets. Every ten metres of height takes roughly one bar, with further losses occurring as water flows through your pipes and fittings. Those losses increase during busier periods, when more outlets are drawing water.

This helps explain why you can have a perfectly adequate supply downstairs while the upper floors struggle. By the time water reaches them, too little pressure may remain to deliver the flow you need. How far your mains pressure can reliably supply water depends on the incoming pressure and the losses through your building’s distribution system, but CIBSE notes that mains pressure is unlikely to serve much beyond three to five storeys reliably.

A booster set supplies the additional pressure needed to reach and serve those floors. It’s also worth noting that long horizontal pipe runs also create frictional losses, so your building may need boosting even when it extends mainly outwards rather than upwards.

How does a water pressure booster system respond to changing demand?

Height gives us one part of the explanation, but we also need to consider how water use changes throughout your working day.

When several areas draw water at once, more water has to pass through the shared pipework, increasing frictional losses. A variable-speed booster set responds by adjusting its pump speed to maintain the required pressure as demand changes.

Of course, maintaining that flow also depends on having enough water available to pump. Larger installations commonly draw from a break tank, which stores incoming mains water. During a peak in demand, this stored water helps bridge any gap between what the mains can deliver and what your building is using. The tank’s capacity and refill rate therefore need to work alongside the pumps to sustain your supply.

What does this mean when choosing a booster pump for your building?

The key to implementing an effective water pressure booster system is to provide enough pressure at your most demanding outlets while keeping pressure suitable elsewhere. In taller buildings, that can mean dividing the supply into pressure zones so the pressure needed upstairs does not become excessive on the lower floors.

For an existing building, we start by taking measurements. Through our hydraulic analysis, we measure flow, pressure and energy use while your system operates. Together with your pipework layout and outlet requirements, those readings help us establish where pressure is being lost and how much additional pressure you need. We can then assess whether your existing equipment needs attention or additional boosting capacity is required, with a clear understanding of what is causing the shortfall.

What next?

If you’d like to find out more about booster pumps for buildings, please contact one of the specialists at Samatrix today by clicking here, or by calling 01792949695