I am getting a pumped electric shower for a gravity-fed system. The reviews I've seen for the Mira Elite 2 and Triton T80Si pumped/T90si tend to say they are terribly noisy.
Does anyone have any experience with these?
Thanks Roger
All pumped showers are crap.
In what way?
My Aqualisa Quartz gives a very satisfying shower, given that we have a conventional stored hot water system and the water tank is only about 1 foot above the bathroom ceiling, what else would you suggest as a better option?
As an alternative, can one install a booster pump for the cold supply and an ordinary electric shower? Or will a booster pump seize up if the hot water side is running dry?
-Roger
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:32:10 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-
Ah, proof by assertion.
In what way are all of them crap?
They are intended to run from mains cold water rather than tanked (although there are some that might cope with tanked if there is a reasonable head).
Probably not worth the hassle though, since not only would you need to lay on a new cold mains feed, but also all the wiring for the shower (which typically costs more than the shower itself!) Even when done you would end up with a very poorly performing shower in comparison to a pumped mixer solution.
you can get single impeller pumps designed to pump just one supply.
Almost anything else. Even a combi..
Sooner or later you run into heat flow issues which limits the rate/duration of the shower.
You may even suck hot tanks dry.
Consider:
If the shower is electrically heated and pumped, there is an upper limit on how aft the water can be heated. Probably around 7KW or so. Even the worst combi does better than that.
If the shower is pumped from a low pressure hot water tank there is a limit to how long you can use it before the tank empties due to the fact that a float valve in whatever header it uses can't fill it up fast enough to keep up. Good way to introduce air locks and with an electrical immersion heater, blow the elements.
If its pumped on the hot side only and the pump fails to start, you will blow high pressure cold back into the tank and header as well.
Unless you have a huge header tank, and pump both hot and cold, my considered opinion is you will never get a decent shower out of any pumped system. AND they are noisy.
If you want decent flow rates for just a single occupancy place, use a combi. Otherwise fit a pressurised HW tank.
Electric showers may tick the box in the estate agents charts, but they never produce what I would call a proper shower.
We've got a pump which does that - designed for just that I think. Works fine, if a bit noisy. I'd go for a pumped mixer or combi if I had the choice though - instant electric showers are a bit underpowered.
cheers, clive
On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:40:05 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-
That is the nature of stored heat. However, the art of design is to match the store to the likely demand.
Hot tanks? I suppose one might find a few hot tanks still left in the UK, but few (if any) outside a museum. If you mean a cylinder, calorifier, or shell and tube heat exchanger, see above.
How "aft" the water can be heated? Sorry, I don't follow.
Instant electric heaters are available in many ratings. However, I'm not sure how they come into a discussion on pumped showers.
If you mean a hot water cylinder and cold water header tank then if the latter cannot supply water continuously it is not a good design. Obviously at some point the water may run cold, but see above.
However, even if it does run out of water that does not mean that the cylinder empties, due to the design of pipework.
In such circumstances, only if the pipework is badly designed and installed.
Only if one manages to empty the cylinder. This is rather difficult, because the pump will draw air down the expansion pipe rather than empty the cylinder. This is basic physics.
If the pipework is badly designed.
This is just proof by assertion again. I note that none of the points you made earlier were about how "decent" the shower is.
The pumps can be a trifle noisy, but this is no great hardship if they are located properly.
10.5kW is quite common. Still pants compared to most other solutions though.
If your rising main can deliver it fast enough, then a couple of fluidmasters will sort that problem,
That last bit does not make sense. You can't pump the hot cylinder dry since the water comes out of the top of it. Once the cold cistern stops replenishing it then the water stops coming out. If you try to pump it out you will just suck air through it, but it will remain full of water.
Unless you stick a non return valve before the pump.
I have found that a Stuart Turner pump located in the airing cupboard is hardly audible when you are in the shower. Mounted carefully there should not be too much noise through the rest of the house.
If your cold main can't keep up with filling your loft tank, then it is not going to be much better here is it?
On that most agree ;-)
Roger Moss wrote in news:UqmdnbJhKftGR snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net:
Yes, I've got one, except that it's all in one unit.
The pump is a bit noisy in the earole, but leaves the rest of the hovel alone, and drowns out the karoake.
I run mine from the cold tank which copes perfectly well on refilling; this buffers the shower from kitchen taps, bogs, etc,w hich can bedevil the mains fed shower.
Mine is 10.5 kW, which is only a bit (!) inadequate when the weather is cold. (God ordained that sort of thing when she created the world).
mike
If god was a woman she would have made anything but mains pressure shows a cardinal sin.
In article , Roger Moss writes
Just back from a short hol where they had a Mira pumped shower with a separate pump, performance was excellent and whisper quiet due to the well muffled remote pump. It's a layout I would heartily recommend but the shower rail fittings were flimsy and had bust in the high traffic environment. I think it was a Mira Excel which is thermostatic, the Mira Gem 88 looks to have a beefier rail setup. No idea which pump was fitted but knowing the people that rent the place out I reckon they'd have gone Mira throughout so prob their PPT3 pump? Unpumped head was about 5 feet. Shower came with both regular and water saving Eco spray inserts.
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