Electric Showers

[John]

Looking for a bit of advice please.

My mum has an electric shower (Mira Supreme, which according to the web is either an 8 or 9 Kw, I have yet to go and look at it) that has been in the house since new build in 1994. She is telling me the 'pressure' has decreased over the last few months, it still works OK to have a shower but "not as powerful as it was", She has removed and cleaned the shower head which makes no difference. Is it likely to be furred up and if so is there a cure, apart from replacement. If she goes down the replacement path can you get 'powerful electric showers or are the dependant on your incoming water pressure? I presume you cannot put a pump in the circuit because of pumping mains water. Assuming the cable is the correct rating is it worth putting a higher Kw rated shower in it's place, and will this create the feeling of more pressure? I hope that makes sense to everybody, it does to me but I know what I am trying to say!

Cheers

John

[Andy Hall]

Could be. You can get them descaled or do it yourself with a descaling acid - e.g. one intended for HW systems

You can get electric showers up to about 10.5kW for normal domestic use. This will give proportionately more flow, but no electric shower can be described as "powerful"

You can't put a pump on a mains supply, but really it wouldn't achieve anything because the flow is designed to be lower than the supply would give to allow sufficient heating to take place.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Christian McArdle]

The flow is usually determined by the amount of water that can be heated, not by how much water can get through the thing. Unfortunately, at under

10kW, you aren't going to heat much water and an electric shower is not going to be good. The limit is around 4 litres per minute, which is less than half the paltry amount the water supplier to require to provide and about a tenth of what they typically provide.

The best fix is to throw it away and connect to your house's hot water supply, which can usually supply far more hot water, although if the thing has furred up, replacement with a similar device (or descaling the old one) will restore the previous performance.

Christian.

[Owain]

"John" wrote | My mum has an electric shower (Mira Supreme, which according to the | web is either an 8 or 9 Kw, I have yet to go and look at it) that | has been in the house since new build in 1994. She is telling | me the 'pressure' has decreased over the last few months, it | still works OK to have a shower but "not as powerful as it was",

Is it possible that your mother is noticing the flow is decreasing because it (both the weather generally, and the incoming water temperature) is getting colder as we approach winter? If she's turning the temperature up to get a hotter shower (or trying to keep the same output temp with colder incoming water) then the flow will decrease.

If you turn the temp down then the flow should increase. If the flow is low even at low temps, then suspect physical impediment to water flow.

Owain

[spamoff]

She could get a power shower, although I suspect Owain is right, I have a direct water heater and find I have to turn up the heat in winter to compensate for colder water being fed to the house, which causes a drop in pressure. I don't recommend connecting to the hot water supply as if you are fed by a hot water tank, you rely on gravity feed which gives very little pressure. If you have a diirect water heater or combi boiler you will have the same problem in winter as you have with the electric shower.