electric shower

[Ben]

Hi, i'd like to install a power shower on the cheap!

Next to my bathroom is a cupboard that was originally intended for an imersion heater, i've a combi boiler thingy so the imersion is not needed.

Can i use the electrical wiring from the outlet intended for the imersion heater to power my shower. It would save any additional wiring throughout my home. The imersion outlet is seperate on my fuse box with an 16A fuse.

Cheers.

[Andy Hall]

Presumably you mean an electrically heated shower run from the cold water mains....

If so, no the immersion heater supply (neither cable nor fuse) are adequate.

You would need to install a more substantial cable and increase the fuse to the appropriate ratings recommended by the shower manufacturer. *DO NOT* just increase the fuse without uprating the cable unless you fancy a visit from the fire brigade.

The other type of power shower is simply an electric pump, which you could run from this electrical supply after adding a fused connection unit to the end of the cable. However, these showers are intended to operate with low pressure, tank fed systems, not mains water combi boilers.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Andy Hall]

My experience of loss adjusters/claim assessors is that they often adopt a friendly style in order to try and obtain more information from you by being on "your side" and putting you off guard.

Beware. These people are being paid by the insurer and they will do all they can to minimise the insurer's liability.

This is not to say that one should conceal information or mislead them, but I did have experience of one who attempted to introduce irrelevant information as a justification for reducing the claim.

.andy

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[Christian McArdle]

You are getting confused by terminology here.

1. The term "power shower" refers to a system that use a pump on your stored gravity fed hot water system. You don't appear to have such a system, so this is not possible, although the wiring described would be suitable for such a shower.
2. The term "electric shower" refers to a system which heats water instantaneously. This takes a lot of electricity and needs huge cables. An immersion heater is 3kW. A shower around 10kW. The supply intended for the immersion will be simply inadequete for this.
3. You say you have a combi boiler. This should provide an excellent shower, vastly superior to an electric shower. Why are you wishing to install an electric one?

Christian.

[Ben]

Hmm, damn, guess nothing in life is ever simple!

I suppose i thought i wanted an electric shower from what you guys have said and that my current wiring just aint going to be up to the job.

I do have a combi boiler, but it doesn't seem to make for a good shower... is hard to get the temperature right. I'm quite poor and only had a thingy that attached to the taps, was quite a posh nice shiny plastic one! Is there some kind of weird device that would be better?

Thanks.

[Owain]

"Ben" wrote | Hmm, damn, guess nothing in life is ever simple! | I suppose i thought i wanted an electric shower from what you guys | have said and that my current wiring just aint going to be up to the | job. | I do have a combi boiler, but it doesn't seem to make for a good | shower... is hard to get the temperature right. | I'm quite poor and only had a thingy that attached to the taps, was | quite a posh nice shiny plastic one! | Is there some kind of weird device that would be better?

1. Check both hot and cold are being fed from the mains - your hot water through the combi will be mains, but your cold may still be from a tank (like the hot was, presumably). You could install a pump to bring the cold up to a similar pressure, but it would be better to replumb the bath/shower to run directly from the cold mains. You could keep the loft tank for the loo cisterns (possibly quieter filling, and also a reserve in case of mains water failure).

... then when both the hot and cold are similar pressure ...

1. Fit a proper thermostic shower mixer

Owain

[John Stumbles]

---8,---

The one that BES does for about £100 (inc VAT) seems to work nicely on a combi. You have to install it sunk into the wall, and supply your own hose and head etc. Screwfix do a surface mounting one (you can recess the supply pipes) even cheaper including a basic cheapy head etc, which works OK on mixed gravity hot + mains cold but I haven't tried it on a combi.

hth

-- John Stumbles

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-+ Load dropped, paperwork completed: job done.