Purpose of shower switch

I don't believe that a lot are actually that stupid.

Reply to
Rod Speed
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I would never go back to house with water fed from a header tank. Pressured cylinder or combi boiler are so much better: the hot and the cold are at the same pressure and you don't need huge 22 mm pipes for the hot. And there's no incessant noise of the water re-filling the tank in the loft.

My first house had a combined cylinder and header tank, to avoid a tank and associated plumbing in the loft. That was a real beast: I once had to remove it to change the immersion heater element and to empty out all the limescale in the bottom. There was a lot of copper in that cylinder/tank. I had to try to manhandle it round while it was still full of water (tank empty but cylinder full to the brim) because the drain valve was on the *back*. Slight design flaw there! It took a long time, using a hosepipe going downstairs to the kitchen sink to empty it. And I got about a bucket full of limescale out of the tank, filling it a few inches full from the hosepipe, swilling it round and emptying it quickly (repeat ad nauseam). Unfortunately there was a piece of immersion heater which was too big to get out: when the old element blew up (it left scorch marks on the fuse box) it broke into pieces and the splayed out so I couldn't get once of them through the hole that the element screws into.

Pressure and flow rate from a header tank that was only about 4 feet higher than the bath tap was poor. A shower was out of the question, though I could have got an electric one, I suppose.

I found that the flow wasn't very great with the temperature at a bearable level - ie nowhere near so hot that it scalds you.

The difference between summer and winter was very noticeable: you had to turn the shower to a hotter setting to compensate for the water from the rising main being much colder.

My parents have a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire Dales and the water is always freezing even in summer. The first electric shower that they got was (I think) 5 kW and the water from the shower head was like fine rain - or else it was barely tepid. At least the replacement one is a bit more powerful.

Is there any advantage of an electric shower over a combi or cylinder, as long as it's fed by mains water and the combi boiler can heat it sufficiently? Or is there some sort of unwritten law that even with a good supply of hot water, a shower will still be electric heat-on-demand, rather than gas/oil heat-on-demand or pre-heated?

Reply to
NY

It is a device that locks off MCBs (and other stuff such as main switches, RCDs some SFCU)

Reply to
ARW
[snip]

Something like an electric chair :-)

Reply to
hah

I've never had the need for high pressure hot water. Why do you?

Mine are all 15mm.

It's in the loft, I can't hear it unless I'm in the loft.

Luckily here in Scotland we don't get limescale.

Doh!

Well I guess it depends on what you call warm, and what the incoming temperature is, but my 8kW shower provides water at what I'd say was pretty warm (40C?) fast enough that it splashes off me, and if the curtain wasn't pulled across, would bounce onto the floor.

I bet there's some stupid regulation about maintaining the correct temperature if someone flushes the toilet.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

Most are like that in fact. Probably because the tank doesn't stay hot and wastes fuel.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

It is in the UK, most used to have a hot water tank with a cold header tank in the attic.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

Don't believe it.

Trivial to insulate fully.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Maybe the Scots like to save money.

No insulation is anywhere near perfect.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

Don't believe that.

Doesn't need to be.

Reply to
Rod Speed

You don't believe the Scots are skinflints? We're famous for it.

There's a saying that goes something like a Scotsman is in practise to become a Jew.

Does, or the boiler keeps coming on when you're not having a shower. Fine in winter as it just heats the house. Otherwise, a waste.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

I was thinking of folk who shoved a rubber hose onto the bath tap.

Which we never used to have. Everyone in the UK had a hot water cylinder with pressure made from a cold tank in the attic. Not sure why it was so difficult just to connect the mains water straight to the inlet of the tank.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

I was referring to the rubber hoses with a cone at the end meant for shoving onto the tap. I would hunt to see if they are still for sale but I don't know what they are called. They would still be useful for washing a dog in the bathtub.

They have permanently attached hand-held sprayers with metal hoses that some people must like for some reason, maybe women so they can avoid getting their hair wet, but I think they are inconvenient.

Reply to
micky

He's slumming.

Actually he means that he does it himself, doesn't bother to get a permit, and so there is no one asking to inspect after the work is done. At least I think that's what he means.

Until it burns down. Those rules are there for a reason. Like traffic stop lights, most aren't put in until someone dies for lack of the rule

As to building inspectors, when they built the first 16 of the townhouses here, they didn't extend the wall to the roof. It was one big attic.

This means a thief can go up from his place to the attic and then down into any of the other homes in his building. But the bigger problem is that fires will spread from one home to all the others.

There are no stairs to the attic, only trap doors, but eventually someone went up there and saw that the builder had violated the building code. He called the building department which forced the builder to finish the walls. Must have been a lot harder when the houses were full of walls, furniture, and people, but serves him right.

Reply to
micky

That was a joke, Joyce.

By hacking the end off their dick with a claymore eh ? Yeah, right.

Only a fool uses a boiler to heat the water in a storage hot water cylinder.

Reply to
Rod Speed

They never did that.

Yes, you lot were that primitive.

Reply to
Rod Speed

In ten languages.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright
[snip]

My parents got one of those in 1970, for washing the dog. The package said "fits all faucets" which should be "fits all faucets except for those it doesn't fit". It didn't fit ours.

[snip]
Reply to
Mark Lloyd

I just guessed about the dog!

LOL

Reply to
micky

I sell them. They're handy for someone who only has a bath and doesn't want to spend much on fitting a shower. They only cost £10.

I have an electric shower on the wall, attached to a 3 foot pole, I can lower it below head height if I want to wash my body but not my head.

Reply to
Stephen Watkin

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