2.5 litre/min from new 9.5Kw electric shower- problem?

[David Williams]

Just installed a new Triton T300si (one of those with a remote heating pack).

Its delivering barely over 2.5l/min on half heat setting = just about warm enough for a shower. Pathetic by any measure.

Its a replacement for an old knackered 8.5Kw... but the one delivered approximately TWICE the flow rate (certainly comfortable) at the same temperature setting.

There is NO problem with the plumbing or water pressure on the input (with the mains pressure at full the water is almost exploding out the taps in the same bathroom)

Could anything else be up? wiring???? Or is it really just that crap? (flow/temp charts in manual seem to show much better performance but its difficult to get an exact measure of output temperature to be sure)

thanks in advance.

[Scott]

is the input temp very cold?

[Pete C]

Hi,

What can it do on full heat setting?

cheers, Pete.

[Ian Stirling]

It takes 4100 Joules to raise 1 l of water 1C. To raise 1l 20C takes 4100*20, or 82KJ.

82KJ/9.5Kw = about 9 seconds a liter, or 7l/min.

This is raising 20C, if you're going from 10C to 50C, it'll be 3.5l/min. To hit 2.5l/min, you need to be raising the water temp 60C or so. Unlikely. Sounds like something is wrong.

Can you measure if it's using the right amount of electricity?

[David Williams]

Gentleman-

The input cold water supply is about 13C At full heat (around 43C on the same thermo) it produces about 2.25litre/min

The 2.25 figure seems to be about half what one might expect with a 9.5kw system :(

Any advice much appreciated!

[David Williams]

My rough calculations agreed with yours- about 50% of what I should expect.

Would it suffice to turn it up full and measure the Voltage across it? (pardon my ignorance)

[Andy Hall]

It can't be running at 9.5kW and have that throughput.

Try turning off as much other electrical stuff in the house as you can and time the meter for 2-3 minutes and note readings or time a certain amount of use.

Either the element is only consuming half the power continuously, or there is a thermostat turning it on and off. That should be obvious from the meter.

.andy

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[Andy Hall]

It's not going to tell you a lot.

You need to look at the consumption and whether it is simply that the water flow is low and therefore the thermostat is turning the element on and off. It may be that it has some kind of electronic controller that reduces the power rather than turning it on and off, I suppose.

Try looking at the meter and timing an amount of consumption. Also look and see if the meter stops and starts.

.andy

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[David Williams]

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. As I mentioned above, the water pressure to the unit is fine... on the 'cold' setting (i.e. basically just run through from mains) it pumps around 8.5-9 l/min.

[Andy Hall]

Perhaps the water valve is faulty or something?

.andy

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[David Williams]

Could be- there is a 'stabaliser valve' in the unit. When it was first installed a relay jammed on the main board and blew almost everything that could blow. The Triton engineer replaced the circuit board, the heater can and the thermal cut-out... it all worked and I immediatley noticed the low flow but he made nothing of it and I was so pleased to have it working that I didnt push it further. It was only when I used it the first time I realised just how low the flow was...

I will call them again but I hoped to do some diagnosis myself as I can see it will be a huge uphill struggle to get them to fix/replace it when it is apparently 'working' :(

[Andy Hall]

Did you buy it as a consumer with a credit card?

If so, really the supplier owns the problem, not the manufacturer.

Could you not just uninstall it and return it for a replacement? On a new product, you shouldn't have to have all this nonsense, although it does make sense to measure the flow rate and measure the electricity consumption and write to them on it. Clearly it doesn't meet spec. and you've demonstrated that the water supply is OK.

.andy

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[Ian Stirling]

Unless there's a significant leak :)

[Andy Hall]

Of either water or electricity. Unless David has bought one of those energy concentrating gizmos and it is being sapped away like a sort of table top black hole.

.andy

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[fred]

In article , David Williams writes

I notice it has the usual high and economy settings. In spite of the electronic tag on the unit I bet these are achieved with 2 elements in the heater can and also that one of these is not being fed when it is on the high setting. You'd be able to check this with your multimeter. You might also find that there is no difference in heat between the high & economy settings.

[Ed Sirett]

At half heat you have a 4.75kW shower. Try turning it to full power. The flow rate and likely temperture rise are consistent with the power setting.

[Ed Sirett]

I'm amazed that with the huge amount of collective wisdom in this group it took a dozen posts to get around to this point.

If you open up almost any electric shower you will find that it has two elements! The half heat settting simply uses one out of the two. Temperature control is done by tweaking flow rate.

About the only uses I can think of for 1/2 heat are: a) very mean users - but they don't take into account that there will be less water and they'll have to spend a longer time. b) preventing excessive water temperature when there is very very poor running pressure (not all model have a low water pressure cut off). c) A temporary work around when people have fitted a 9.5kW (or more) onto a 32A supply and find the breaker trips 2 minutes after they have got started.

[mike ring]

"David Williams" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I had a Redring electronic that had two cookers in it and one broke

mike

[David Williams]

Just a quick note to Ed Sirett - the half temp setting referred to the flow control NOT the economy/high setting, I'm not that dumb!. My bad description no doubt, sorry.

Andy's suggestion of looking at the meter revealed the answer. Based on a

3Kw kettle we determined that the unit was drawing just over 4.5kw... which is just exactly 1/2 what it should. The answer was then obvious- (and had Fred replied before I tried this he would have won first prize!) one of the elements isn't functioning. Had a look inside and reseated the two connectors onto the PCB (one was loose) and guess what, it now works fine... same heat on setting 3 as previously on setting 6 so twice the flow. The engineer couldn't have seated the connectors properly when he replaced the board.

Of course in retrospect it all seems obvious and had the shower actually been in use and then suddenly dropped in performance by 50% it would have been obvious too.. but when presented wiht a low flow rate from the first time we coudl actually use the damn thing, it wasn't so!

thanks one and all, now I just have to call Triton and cancel the engineers

2nd visit and tell them why....

David

[Pete C]

Hi,

Try measuring the voltage at the shower when it's switched from half to full power, there should be a small drop as the second element is switched in. The drop should be roughly equal to that between the shower being switched from off to half power.

cheers, Pete.