Power shower: Something one can install oneself?

Can we please stop it with the FUD ;->

It's NOT notifiable work to add spurs - or even fully incorporated sockets in an existing ring circuit.

Even if it's "notifiable" you can still DIY - you may need to notify the LABC though.

Depends...

Will the pump be outside the bathroom (aka the "special location")?

If it's just a twin remote pump on a fused spur, then yes, you can DIY without further ado.

Perhaps the O/P should clarify - electric shower heating mains pressure cold water, or electric pumped shower from existing tanks of hot and cold water?

Even the former is do-able, but with a few more things to consider

What pump? Aren't these things self-contained? What does that white box on the wall over the bath do?

MM

I assumed the electric shower takes just a cold water feed and 240V electricity. The cold water feed in my house is at mains pressure at every tap, not just in the kitchen.

MM

So, do you need to replace an existing electric shower?

Power shower is a shower with a pump - usually has a hot and cold stored water feed, and a pump outside the bathroom. This can deliver a lot of hot water in a short time because the hot water has been heated before hand.

Electric shower (not power shower) is in a white box in the bathroom with only a cold feed and heats the cold water directly within the white box. This limits the flow rate to the amount of cold water you can heat using

Cheers

Dave R

I assumed the OP was talking about a booster ^^^

I have not come across an electric shower with inbuilt pump but there you go...

There's a hybrid; my mum's house has a 'white box in the bathroom' shower which contains a small pump which helps to produce a better flow of water than would otherwise occur, but the hot water is coming from a cylinder that's quite a long way off in the house. The overall effect is hardly what the phrase 'power shower' conjures up, but is far better than a standard electric shower. It's a Mira shower, but I can't remember the model name.

Doing electrical work in your own home is not illegal. All that has changed is that now electrical work comes under the scope of the building regulations. Hence it needs to be done correctly (i.e. to BS7671 (aka the wiring regs) or an equal euro standard). There are some activities that are also now classed as "notifiable", meaning they need to be done under the supervision of building control, or done by a person authorised to "self certify" their work. Work which is notifiable includes installing complete new circuits, changing a consumer unit, and work extensions and alterations in a special location (bathroom/shower room, sauna, pool house etc - but not kitchen).

Nothing to stop you doing it yourself. Most "power showers"[1] are 12V units where the power supply is installed outside of the shower room - they are often designed to simply plug into a socket.

You could also install a shower pump - again outside of the bathroom - typically near the hot water cylinder.

It might help if you clarify what you are thinking of. A power shower is a self contained substitute for a shower pump. It does not heat the water, but expects to be fed with low pressure hot and cold. Its purpose is to deliver a better flow rate in situations where there is not enough "head" of water to do this on its own.

An electric shower (which looks much the same as a power shower), is designed to take mains cold water and heat it on the fly to provide a (fairly feeble) hot shower without using any stored hot water.

E.g. Power shower:

Electric shower

They look similar but do very different jobs.

Fitting an electric shower is a far more involved job if doing it from scratch:

However if you already have an electric shower, then swapping it for a new one is sometimes less difficult. Fitting from scratch would be notifiable under part P, replacing an existing one with another of the same power would not.

What you describe is what the makers would call a "power shower".

We had a simialr one, made by Aquastream

All the power showers I'd experienced up to the point where this thing was installed looked, inside the bathroom, just like a normal builtin mixer valve - ie not obviously powered at all, but had a pump somewhere else.

There's one on the wall of my shower. It doesn't pump any more, but it still mixes ok.

That's a really a pumped shower, not a power shower.

There was an Aquilisa one fitted here when we moved in. Again the pump was knackerd, but it mixed fine for a while. It was less keen once I converted to mains pressure hot and cold water though ;-) It lasted about another year before finally loosing the plot. Its replacement detailed here:

Thanks for that. Although I would rather install some kind of power shower upstairs first. There is almost room for a Monsoon pump under the bath, but getting power there is tricky, as it's miles from any power. The nearest is the socket for the unused immersion heater, in the airing cupboard at the far end of the bathroom. Supply pipework is ready, it's just the power, pump, and associated shower head and piping that needs to be worked out. Nothing is settled yet, I could use any system that works. It is solid brick wall behind the bath where the head will hang, so no recessing pipework into the wall. And I will use a licensed plumber and electrician to do the work.

Pumps can be effective... they can also be a bit noisy (mount them on something shock absorbing, and fixed to a concrete slab can help!). Worth deciding if you want to pump just the shower or all the outlets.

Also worth noting that if using a powerful pump (i.e. >= 2bar) you need to think carefully about pipe runs and making sure that you have adequate flow into the hot water cylinder. You may also need to fit a surrey/warwix/essex flange to the cylinder to get a good hot supply from it.

Unvented cylinder is another option - although probably more expensive.

Well I guess if you like doing it the hard way ;-)

There are pumped electric showers.