Shower not hot enough

[meow2222]

Hi

I have an electric shower, and its alright in summer, but orrible come winter. I thought I could maybe fix it now for when cold weather comes around.

The metal pipe outlet on the unit is in 2 halves, with a plastic joint between them. So I had a clever idea. Can I keep the earth connection to the outer one, and connect the inner one to live? This should make it run better.

I'd have to wire over the rcd of course, but thats ok, it works fine like that. The 2.5mm wire only gets hot after about 20 mins, and I wont ever be in there more than 10 minutes, so I figure I could double the power rating and still be ok. Any comments?

NT :)

[Graham.]

LOL Should be OK but make sure you wear rubber wellies whilst showering.

Graham.

[Owain]

Yeah, wire it between live and *neutral* ya numpty, not earth, then you won't get RCD trip.

Better still, pop over to Germany and get a 3-phase one. "Du kann es macht, wann du es BundQ't"; "Fusenblowenduschepoppen durch Technik" and all those other pearls of wisdom apply.

Owain

[Ron Lowe]

You can probably reduce the temperature on the 2.5mm wire by hooking the incoming L, N, and E cores together in parallell as a combined 3 * 2.5 Live ( at both the shower and CU) and then on the shower unit hooking the N to the pipework as a combined Neutral /Earth.

If it's plastic pipe, the N leg won't actually connect till the water is flowing, so there may be a 'lag' before the water gets hot, but the tingling sensation should compensate.

[Ron Lowe]

Oh, I forgot to mention...

If the 'Significant Other' complains ( after getting out of the Burns Unit at the local hospital ); then there's a modification to the '3-cores-Live, Pipework-Neutral' configuration to reduce the tingling.

'Float' the entire bathroom electrically.

Place rubber pads under the feet of the bath, and insert short sections if plastic pipework in the bath / basin / bog supplies.

Then, the entire metalwork in the bathroom floats to 240v, so no potential difference -> no tingles.

You might consider some tastefull blue LED lighting betwen the floating live of the bath and true earth. This would 'modulate' nicely as the user showers in blissfull ignorange. Perhaps it could be calibrated as a 'cleanliness' indicator, according to water conductivity and dirt content.

[Frank Erskine]

On 6 Jul 2006 14:23:38 -0700, [e-mail] had this to say:

If you run the 2.5mm wires _through_ the incoming cold water pipe you'd keep them nice and cool. You might have to use a bit bigger pipe so that you get enough water through though, especially if you leave the sheath on the wires. It's a good idea to use 2.5mm wires, because you'll save a lot on energy bills (and the wire is cheap).

For the bits of wire that can't go by pipe, just cover them in a bit of cloth which you can keep damp with a watering can. Just remember to use a plastic watering can rather than a galvanised tin one.

[meow2222]

Some seriously smart ideas in this thread.

NT

[meow2222]

OK, heres what I plan to do. I realised the missus might take a bt longer now and then, so I need to uprate the cable. 3x2.5 live is an excellant move, and I'm looking at using the water pipe as a combined N/E conductor. This has been done in US since WW2, and doesnt seem to be causing safety problems, so ok. Only question is, how do I deal with the water in the CU?

NT

[meow2222]

OK, heres what I plan to do. I realised the missus might take a bt longer now and then, so I need to uprate the cable. 3x2.5 live is an excellant move, and I'm looking at using the water pipe as a combined N/E conductor. This has been done in US since WW2, and doesnt seem to be causing safety problems, so ok. Only question is, how do I deal with the water in the CU?

NT

[Phil Anthropist]

Some shocking replies. All I can add is to make sure you strip all the insulation off the cables as any insulation will keep the heat in.

[Ron Lowe]

If the flow is more than can be accomodated by simply drilling a small hole in the underside of the CU, then you'll need to fit an overflow.

Most CUs have 20mm punch-outs for fitting overflows to, and overflow pipe is cheap. Here's some from screwfix:

you want to fit an exteror light, this would be a goot time. You can run the wire through the overflow to outside.