Month: October 2014

New Extended Guarantees from Stuart Turner Pumps

October 30, 2014

Product warranty & guarantee are both important aspects of our customer service strategy here at Anchor Pumps, allowing us to provide help and assistant if something does go wrong with your pump. With this in mind, we were extremely pleased to hear the latest announcement from Stuart Turner Pumps regarding their extended product guarantees!

Celebrated for their high quality pumps and reliability as a leading manufacturer, Stuart Turner has now increased the length of the standard guarantees provided on selected products.

Extended guarantees are now offered as standard on the below products – the brand are cutting out the process of registering your pump details on-line to ensure guarantee.

We’re pleased to announce that extended guarantees are now available on the following Stuart Turner products:

5 years as standard
– Monsoon

3 years as standard
– Monsoon Extra
– Showermate
– Showermate Eco
– Techflo QT
– Flomate

When it comes to quality, Stuart Turner take great pride in ensuring all products are individually tested and inspected under the Quality Management System BS EN ISO 9001: 2008.

The Anchor Pumps team highly recommend the Stuart Turner brand to customers, and the extension of their product guarantees demonstrates the manufacturer’s confidence in their range of products available.

Grant Ellis, Commercial Director for Stuart Turner concludes “Our pumps have long proved exceptional in terms of reliability and we thought it was time to pass on our confidence in the design and manufacture of our products to provide meaningful and tangible benefits to our customers when investing in the Stuart Turner brand”.

Winter flooding guide – From protecting your pipes to submersible pumps

October 27, 2014

The clocks have gone back which means winter is officially here! As the cold weather arrives, the danger of flooding re-appears for many in the UK. Last winter, we saw a mass of destruction due to heavy rainfall and rising water levels, causing extreme damage for many home owners. To ensure that effective flood protection measures are put in place before the UK winter weather hits, the team at www.anchorpumps.com are highlighting the essential steps that you need to take to safeguard your home against floods this winter:

1) New Home Checks
If you are moving house, it is important to find out if the property is situated on a floodplain. Speak to neighbours and find out if the property is at risk or experiences regular flooding – meaning that as residents you would have to pay out frequently for repairs. Before buying a house, remember to take into account whether paying for flood damage, flood insurance and remedial work is financially possible.

2) Flood Damage Insurance
If your property is at risk of flooding, it is highly advisable to set up flood damage insurance. The cost of repairing damage after a flood can be costly, and while some insurance companies may not cover all damages caused by flooding, insurance can give you extra peace of mind in the unfortunate event of a flood.

3) Prevention Methods
Strengthening vulnerable areas of the home that may be susceptible to flood water such as windows and doors are essential in flood defence. Sandbags and flood boards are a go-to protective solution when it comes to flooding for many. Simply pile the sandbags both externally and internally by doors and any ventilation pipes where water may be able to enter your home. Do remember sandbags are only a temporary form of flood protection – if your property suffers from regular flooding then it is highly recommend implementing stronger, long term defences.

To reduce the risk of flooding to a property further, it is also advisable that you alter the layout of your property – this can be through raising electric sockets, fuse sockets and wiring to at least 1.5m above floor level.

4) Freezing Pipes
Flooding cannot just be blamed on the British wet weather, during the winter another common cause for flooding is freezing pipes, bursting and flooding your home with water from the mains. There are a number of steps you can take to mitigate the risk of both freezing pipes and flooding:

– Prevention
Good insulation is the first step towards preventing freezing / burst pipes. It can also be worth opening up cabinets that conceal pipes, as well as your loft hatch, to allow warm air to reach your plumbing. Make sure you also follow basic maintenance such as putting a new washer on a dripping tap. If you are going on holiday or otherwise leaving your home unattended for a while during the colder months, put your central heating on a timer. It should come on for a little while each day and heat to a temperature of at least 15 degrees centigrade, which will help prevent freezing.

– Damage Limitation
If a pipe does burst, then there are a number of things you can do to minimise the damage that flooding will cause. Make sure you know in advance where the stopcock is located within your home; this will enable you to turn off the water supply as soon as possible should a pipe burst. If you are concerned about the risk of flood damage, you may wish to invest in a sump pump. This will allow you to quickly and efficiently pump away flood water and remove it from your property as soon as possible, even preventing it from rising as high as it would otherwise. The risk of damage will therefore be significantly reduced.

5) Invest in a Flood Protection Kit
In the unfortunate event of a flood, it is important to quickly remove the water to limit the amount of damage to your property. Flood-water pumps, or submersible pumps as they are known, can help quickly remove any unwanted flood-water from your home and reduce long term damage to your property and help keep water levels under control.

6) Important Contacts to hand
In the unfortunate event of a flood, be sure to have all the important contact and policy numbers that you may need to hand including your insurance details and also the national Flood line number (0845 988 1188).

You can find the full list of emergency flood contacts on the Anchor Pumps blog.

Are you brave enough to take a dip in the world’s deepest swimming pool?

October 24, 2014

The team at Anchor Pumps where fascinated by the recent announcement from the Guinness Book of Records, confirming the proud location of a new, world record holding swimming pool, in Italy’s Montegrotto Terme area, around 11 kilometres south west of Padua.

Here can be found the four star Hotel Millepini, a luxury establishment offering therapeutic beauty treatments, and now a place where the term ‘in at the deep end’ acquires a whole new meaning.

A year in the making, the Y-40 Deep Joy opened on June 5th 2014. The number in the name refers to the pools breath taking depth. Designed by the leading Italian architect Emanuele Boaretto, the swimming pool covers an area of 21 by 18 metres, but it’s the distance straight down that is the truly impressive figure. At its deepest point, the Y-40 is a whopping 42 metres – that’s almost asdeep as the Statue of Liberty is tall, when measured from her feet to her torch.

The pool contains over 4.3 million litres of water and we couldn’t help but wonder how many swimming pool pumps it must take to keep this establishment running!! There are several platform levels set at various depths before you get to the big plunge, along with sub aquatic caves in which scuba divers can practice. A suspended transparent tunnel runs through the middle of the pool, allowing spectators to enjoy a great view of the action without having to get wet.

A major plus is that no wetsuits are required in this diving facinity. This is due to the water being at a constant 32 to 34 degrees Celsius, a comfortable temperature that is completely natural, as the pool is fed by from local springs. Originating in the Lessini Mountains, this water flows through calcareous rock for decades, collecting mineral salts, before reaching the spa basin of Abano-Montegrotto where it rises to the surface. This salt-bromine-iodine hyperthermal water is renowned for its health benefits. To treat this type of reactive water, water filtration system – all pumps and filters used to treat the water are made completely of stainless steel.

When Y-40 Deep Joy was inaugurated, a ceremony took place involving the Italian world free diving champions Ilaria Molinari (who adopted the guise of a mermaid for the occasion) and Umberto Pelizzari, who bravely checked and verified the depth measurement.

Since the grand opening the pool has been a magnet for scuba divers and free divers from all over the world. If you are among those groups of enthusiasts then you’ll need no further encouragement to check out this unique watery venue. However, if you’re a beginner or are simply curious, then you can also try the Y-40 under supervision. There are plenty of safety precautions in place, to help you take the dive!

Yet it’s still quite a challenge – the prospect of being down there is psychologically, as well as physically, imposing. You need to ask yourself whether you would be up to it when it comes down to the big dive.

Afterwards, you can dry off on the sunbathing deck on the roof, relax and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You’ll have discovered what you’re capable of, having explored both the depths of the Y-40 and your own.

Looking to give your swimming pool a touch of Italian luxury like the Y-40? View the full range of swimming pool pumps now available from www.anchorpumps.com

Salamander Home Boost Product Update

October 23, 2014

With over 20 years’ experience, Salamander’s trusted pumps are made from the highest quality components, the vast majority of which are sourced in the UK.

Salamander pumps offer a great solution if you are experiencing poor water pressure or flow at home, where an easy-to-install and cost-effective pump can solve any water pressure problems you may be encountering. This means, no more sluggish performing showers, baths that take a long time to fill or combi-boilers working on go-slow – just high-powered water pressure and flow, as and when you need it.

Salamander is continually looking at ways to improve its already high-performing pumps. With innovation is at the heart of the brand’s ethos, with ease of use and installation also key considerations.

Most recently, Salamander has made a number of changes to its popular Home Boost pump, to enhance the quality of the product to an even elevated level. Through a range of components, the pump is now much easier to install than ever before, making it arguably the UK’s easiest fit shower pump unit

Home Boost is usually connected to 22mm pipe work, which can be fitted using standard nut and olive compression fittings. Salamander appreciates that not all customers have this standard size of pipe work, so it has now made it much easier to install for pipes of different sizes.

For 15mm pipes, for instance, the Home Boost kit comes complete with two reducing sets that can connect the pump to the smaller bore pipe. A set of two 3/4″ tap connectors come with the reducing sets to further increase the ease at which the pump can be installed.

Getting hold of supplies for non-standard fittings is not always that easy for customers, so the news that Salamander is including these items with the kit is positive news. Not only does it mean customers can save time and any inconvenience caused, but they can also make savings.

One of the key features of the Salamander Home Boost pump is how quiet it is. It has already been officially recognised as one of the quietest pumps on the market, and duly awarded with the Quiet Mark from the UK Noise Abatement Society. Read more about the Salamander achieving this award in our latest blog post here.

To further boost the quietness of the pump, Salamander has been working hard to create further improved electronics of the system, to boost better noise quality. This has been achieved through the use of sensor-less motor technology, which has the capability of changing the way that the electronics communicate to the motor, further enhancing noise reduction from the pump.
As one of the most trusted, UK brands of pumps, these new Home Boost features now make the product even more desirable than before.

Shop the full range of Salamander Pumps online today at Anchor Pumps!

The weirdest & wackiest toilets from around the world

October 20, 2014

Going to the toilet is something that we all have to do, and by some of the weird and wacky designs coming out of public restrooms it seems that some creative folk are trying to add an element of simply going the loo! Across the globe there a numerous odd restrooms that draw in crowds and the team here at Anchor Pumps are taking a look at the strange and sometimes scary public loos and rounded up the five weirdest, worldwide.

A musical interlude
In a local pub in Freiberg, Germany – gorgeous brass tenor horns have been turned trumpet-up, making the perfect urinal for those who are as bold as brass. Landlord Martin Hartman installed these unusual urinals for fun and they’ve drawn in quite a crowd who have mostly seen the funny side, although it seems he has had some complaints from musicians!

Lip service
At the Rolling Stone Museum in Germany the urinals have caused quite a stir as they are very far from the stock standard white porcelain. Lip shaped and bright cherry red, men get to relieve themselves in what some say is an impression of front man Mick Jagger’s famous rubber lips, while others say that they are a sexist and misogynistic form of female oppression. Whichever way you look at it, these red lip urinals, created to replicate the Rolling Stones famous logo, are a rather unusual choice, and they have certainly made for a talking point.

In full view
From the outside it’s a mirrored glass box, but from the inside its one of the most terrifying toilets in the world! Located on a busy London Street, a toilet encased behind one way glass is part of an art instalment and is perhaps the only installation that wants to be subjected to a call of nature. Once ensconced inside no one can see in, but seeing out is no problem and you get to go about your business while people peer in interest at the glass box.

Pop up in unexpected places
In London the age old issue of drunks publicly urinating in the street began to take its toll and the British hit upon an idea that sounds almost too crazy to be true. Pop up toilets. During the day these telescopic urinals remain hidden under an innocuous manhole cover and at night they literally pop up and offer an alternative to peeing on the pavement!!

An icy experience
At the Ice Gallery in Seoul, South Korea a novel way to beat the heat has emerged, with an ice toilet offering you the perfect place to rest your bottom in the warmer weather. The heat in Seoul can be oppressive and there’s also an ice hotel that accommodates those who want to escape the sweltering temperatures, and no hotel would be complete without an icy throne of a different kind. Sculptured to look like a toilet, this creative solution is both aesthetically pleasing and fully flushable!

Article brought to you by www.anchorpumps.com

Sources:
http://metro.co.uk/2009/05/07/germans-wee-in-brass-instruments-97094/
http://www.ibtimes.com/lip-shaped-urinals-cause-uproar-german-rolling-stones-museum-402718
www.nbcnews.com/id/4326340/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/new-way-view-london-toilet/#.T9HKI9UV2NB
http://civilclothing.com/fight-the-heat-wave-use-an-ice-toilet
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2382831.stm