Electric shower help please

[Broadback]

My daughter has just purchased a house in which the boiler is going to be replaced for a combi. After having a combi failure myself I realise that an electric shower is beneficial, as you can always keep clean! :-) There is an electric shower at the moment, but it is pathetic. The way the temperature is regulated is by reducing/increasing the rate of water flow. As a result to get a nice hot shower the water hardly has the energy to leave the shower head. Can anyone recommend an electric shower which will deliver a good hot flow?

TIA John

[Lurch]

I think most showers do it like that.

Higher power = more heating of water. Just check the cable size and see what your max shower size will be. It'll more then likely be a 6mm cable thus limiting you to about 8.5kw which is reasonable. It's more likely though that the crap shower hasn't got enough water flowing through it to start with. Our 8.5kw shower was never that good until I repiped it, with full bore valves and sweeping bends rather than 90 degree fittings, improved it no end. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Neil Jones]

This may not be what you want to hear, but in my experience all electric showers which heat the water instantaneously are disappointing. Water needs a tremendous amount of energy to heat it up and doing so electrically in large volumes is not really practical in a dmoestic situation. It's also more expensive than using gas.

Personally, I'd rather be totally disappointed occasionally (if/when the combi fails) rather than somewhat disappointed every day.

regards

Neil

[David Moodie]

There are many here who think that a decent shower is impossible from an elecrtic shower, but we've had a 10.5kW version for the last couple of years and found it perfectly acceptable, in fact it is often turned down to a lower power setting during the summer and is still adequate. I'm unsure of the exact model but it is made by Triton, and was bought from Agros IIRC. I would also say that this shower was a major improvement compared to the old electric one that it replaced, which was indeed pretty poor.

The main issue is that the cables supplying the shower may need upgraded to accomodate the increased load.

Having said all that I'm now in the process of replacing it with a thermostatic mixer :-) BUT we will install the same shower in a second bathroom which is currently at the planning stage.

regards

David

[Harry Bloomfield]

Electric showers all work that way, when the water is really cold. The only way to improve them is to increase the heat input, increase the Kw. The more heat input, the more the shower can be turned up and yet stay warm enough.

Be aware of the fact that a lower Kw shower can not simply be replaced with an higher rated one without increasing the size of the feed cable, the MCB rating and perhaps the ratings of the switches/isolators.