A real scenario from a job in Middlewich this week
We were called in this week to fit a shower pump for a customer in Middlewich. On paper, a straightforward job. But before any pump gets fitted, we always check the cold water tank in the loft first — because the tank and the pump work together as a system, and fitting a pump to an undersized tank is one of the most common and expensive mistakes we see.
What we found in the loft told us everything we needed to know. The original builder had installed a 25 gallon cold water tank — fine for the era the house was built, when a single bathroom with a standard shower was all anyone expected. Not fine for a modern shower pump, which demands a consistent and adequate supply of cold water to function properly.
What a shower pump actually does — and what it needs to work
A shower pump doesn’t create water pressure from nothing. It boosts the pressure of the water that’s already flowing through your system. For that to work, it needs a sufficient and consistent volume of cold water feeding it from above.
If the tank in your loft is too small, the pump draws water out faster than the tank can refill. The result varies depending on the pump fitted. With a Stuart Turner — which is the only brand we fit, because in over 20 years we’ve found nothing that matches them for reliability and longevity — the pump will stutter for a few seconds and then switch off cleanly rather than continuing to run with inadequate water flow. It’s a safety feature, not a fault. Many homeowners assume the pump has broken. In most cases it hasn’t — it’s protecting itself because the tank can’t keep up.
The general rule of thumb is a minimum of 50 gallons for a home with a shower pump. A 25 gallon tank — perfectly standard for homes built in the 1970s and 1980s — is half of what’s needed.
The two options we gave our customer
Once we’d diagnosed the problem, we gave our customer an honest choice. There was no upsell here — just two genuine options with different costs and different implications.
Option 1 — Change your showering habits
Not the most satisfying solution, but a legitimate one if cost is a concern. By turning the shower off while soaping up and back on to rinse — the so-called navy shower approach — you reduce the rate at which the pump draws from the tank and give it more time to refill. For some customers, particularly those using the shower once a day, this is perfectly workable.
Cost: nothing.
Downside: it requires discipline every single day, and it doesn’t solve the underlying problem if you have more than one person showering regularly.
Option 2 — Increase your cold water capacity
The proper fix. This means either replacing the existing 25 gallon tank with a larger one — typically 50 gallons — or adding a second tank alongside the existing one and connecting the two together. Both approaches give the pump the volume of water it needs to do its job properly.
Before committing to a replacement tank, there’s a practical constraint that’s easy to overlook — the loft hatch. A standard rectangular 50 gallon tank simply won’t fit through many older loft hatches, which means the choice of tank is partly dictated by the access available. In these situations a coffin tank is often the answer. These are elongated, lower-profile tanks designed specifically to pass through restricted openings, and provided there’s sufficient floor space in the loft they work just as well as a conventional tank.
One more thing worth checking while you’re up there — the platform the tank sits on. A 50 gallon tank full of water is considerably heavier than the 25 gallon tank it’s replacing, and older timber platforms weren’t always built with that weight in mind. Strengthening or replacing the platform before the new tank goes in is a straightforward job and not an expensive one, but skipping it isn’t worth the risk.
In terms of honest costs for 2026 in Cheshire, here’s what you should expect to pay:
- The tank itself — a good quality 50 gallon cold water tank costs in the region of £200-£250. As with most things in this trade, buying cheap here is a false economy.
- Labour to replace the tank — disconnecting the old tank, strengthening the platform where needed, installing and connecting the new tank, and making good typically adds £200-£350 depending on access and pipework complexity.
- Total cost — roughly £400-£600 all in, depending on your loft and what’s involved.
Adding a second tank alongside the existing one is sometimes the more practical route where loft access or pipework makes a full replacement awkward. A second tank properly connected and balanced with the existing one costs a similar amount for materials and slightly less for labour. Total cost in that scenario roughly £350-£550.
Either way, once the tank issue is resolved, the pump can be fitted and commissioned properly — which is what we went on to do for our Middlewich customer.
How to tell if your tank might be the problem
If you’re experiencing any of the following, your cold water tank is worth investigating before you spend money on a new shower pump:
- Your Stuart Turner pump stutters briefly then switches itself off during showering
- Pressure drops noticeably when another tap or appliance is running elsewhere in the house
- You can hear the tank in the loft refilling frequently and for long periods
- Your home was built before 1990 and has never had the loft tank replaced or upgraded
The only reliable way to know for certain is to have someone with experience take a look. We always check the tank as part of any shower pump installation — because fitting a pump without checking is the short cut that leads to a callback.
A note on why this matters for older properties in Cheshire
The CW10, CW8, CW9 and CW11 postcodes — Middlewich, Northwich, Sandbach and the surrounding areas — have a significant stock of homes built between the 1960s and 1990s. Many of these will still have their original cold water tanks, sized for the plumbing demands of the era they were built in. Modern shower pumps and the general increase in water usage in a typical household have moved the goalposts considerably.
If you’re in an older property and thinking about upgrading your shower, it’s always worth asking your fitter whether the tank has been checked. If they don’t mention it, ask the question yourself.
If you’re in Middlewich, Northwich, Sandbach, Knutsford, Holmes Chapel or Winsford
We carry out shower pump installations and cold water tank upgrades across all of our service areas. Every job starts with an honest assessment — we’ll tell you exactly what we find and exactly what it will cost before any work begins.
Call Martin on 07734 703414 for a free, no-obligation quote.
