Mira Sport shower quirk

[Rob Nicholson]

Dropped in to see my mum yesterday and she said the shower was playing up. The symptoms are with dial #1 on hot (one step down from high) and dial #2 on 7 (of 9), the pump runs and the water gets hot. However, the temperature varies noticeably and after running for say five minutes, the water goes cold and the pressure drops. My mum has also said that it has stopped completely a few times.

Diagnosis?

I assume a shower like this consists of a heater, a heat exchanger, a flow control valve, a thermostat and a pump.

Cheers, Rob.

[RedOnRed]

How old is it?

We've had a couple of Mira Sports (last house and current one) and they've both been very good. Neither have failed yet, although the current one at times is now louder then normal.

Electric showers certainly don't last for ever. If the shower is quite old and out of warranty then you may as well just buy another one in my book. Ours was about £140.

[Rob Nicholson]

Not that old - I fitted it about five years ago.

Might end up doing that - just hope the inlet pipe are in the same place!

Rob.

[Pete C]

As Mira are a 'premium' brand I should expect they'll have a well staffed product support line who can help pinpoint the fault and advise how to get it fixed.

It might just be that the inlet strainers or the thermostatic valve are getting blocked by scale or debris and the pump overheats and cuts out.

Or there is a blockage elsewhere in the hot water pipe and the pump cuts out on under pressure.

cheers, Pete.

[RedOnRed]

The problem is that any electric shower manufacturer will advise that under no circumstances should anyone other then a properly qualified service engineer open one up.

That's when the cost effectiveness of a repair over a replacement will then come into question.

[Simon Stroud]

... and if it's anything like my long-ago-ripped-out Triton T200RE (the Worst Product I Have Ever Bought) the plastic will all start crumbling away making replacing bits of it impossible. After several repairs I ended up having to fork out for a whole replacement main unit as they didn't make the "back panel" available as a separate part and that was the main bit that had crumbled away. Seemed to be made of the kind of plastic that cracks up after a couple of years of mild heat!

Anyway it's long gone now (removed and smashed to pieces) and replaced with two showers running off my big combi. Far better.

BTW did I mention that the Triton was the Worst Product I Have Ever Bought?

Regards, Simon.

[RedOnRed]

Interesting to hear your bad experiences with a Triton.

All I know is that my Mira Sport was about £140 and if and when it starts playing up i'll just get a new one. After all, it is about 4 years old.

One thing i've noticed is that none of the plumbers round my way would consider fitting an electric shower due to seeing them being too troublesome and awkard to fit. Not worth the aggro I suppose.

[Rob Nicholson]

Ended up getting a replacement 7.5kW one from eBay at an excellent price of £77 plus £9 delivery. Fitted it last week and it wasn't quite a like-for-like replacement although both Mira Sport showers:

o Pipe fitting was in different place - fortunately just needed pipe reducing in length o Power connector block higher up in shower which meant I had to extend the

30A cable (that stuff is hard to bend) o Screw fittings in completely different places so had to drill new holes in tiles (had new tile bits handy)

Ho hum, nothing is ever easy...

On a related but separate topic, I bought a mini-pipe cutter from B&Q in Sheffield as the one I had was too big to the cut existing pipe in place. These things are badly designed. It's natural to grip it between thumb and finger as you rotate it around the pipe. Unfortunately, the pipe cutter wheel is a fraction of a millimetre proud of the surrounding metalwork. A fraction of a millimetre proud to slice one's thumb quite neatly...

Rob.