Loft conversion - feed the shower?

[Ged]

I am planning a loft conversion and want to put in a shower.

Currently we have a conventional boiler and a ropy old indirect system with cold tank in loft, hot water tank supplying the family bathroom. I have put in a shower pump so that the bathroom shower is very powerful and as a consequence has a very short lifespan before we are cold showering.

So...... the loft shower. I need to have a decent flow and an endless supply, so should I

1. put in a combi in th eloft to supply the loft hot water and heat
2. put in an electric shower
3. re-do the current system and replace with....
4. Put insome kind of thermal store or hiogh pressure system
5. do something else?

as you can see, thinking is at early stages and so any advice would be looked at kindly

cheers Ged

[Christian McArdle]

This is a possiblity if you are replacing the boiler anyway. An instantaneous non-storage combi will provide excellent showers, but will be less good filling the bath. This won't be an issue if you mainly take showers, although you will definitely need a high flow version if you want both showers to work simultaneously. There are also storage based solutions with a small unvented cylinder or heat bank within the boiler casing. These will provide reasonable bath performance, too.

Choke. Splutter. Cough.

I put a DPS Pandora heat bank in. I haven't converted the loft yet, but this will be ideal when I do.

You may be able to use the existing hot water system with the right array of pumps, switches and check valves. The shower would almost certainly need a "kick start" switch as the head would be negative, so flow switches won't work (except to keep the system on until you've finished).

Christian.

[David W.E. Roberts]

Disregarding the loft, it sounds as though you already need a much larger hot water tank.

We fitted a power shower pump and quickly emptied the hot water, and so had an extra large copper tank fitted. This now manages to service two power showers at the same time.

As already posted, your conventional system can work in the loft as long as you have a way to 'kickstart' the pump.

Beware the 'combi' debate :-)

HTH Dave R