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| Electric shower, anything I can do? |
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| SiliconWizard:
I think Electroboom made a video about electric showers. ;D |
| james_s:
I have a conventional tank which I have set quite hot as the hot water is nice for washing dishes and things and mixing it with cool water at the point of use allows a modestly sized tank to go a lot further. Definitely downsides to this too though, it's a safety issue for kids (which I don't have) and it's harder on the tank. Temperature surges were once an issue but when I redid the bathroom I installed one of those valves that regulates the differential pressure and that has worked very well. |
| NiHaoMike:
Try putting a diode in series with the heater? |
| paulca:
Yes, sorry, forgot the international audience. The shower is a wall fitted unit that takes cold water in, has 9Kw of heating elements, and hot water comes out of the shower head. It's on it's own circuit with a current breaker and RCD. So if the water ever conducts it will, hopefully conduct to earth and trip the RCD. Remember it's 240V, so 9Kw is circa 37 amps. Usually these are wired with 10mm twin and earth cable. The house is old, built 1968. It has an unpressurized, vented hot water system with a cistern in the attic keeping it full. So both the cold and hot water are gravity fed upstairs. The shower runs off the cold and apparently, according to a plumber has a priority valve trying to insure it gets the water pressure if other taps are turned on. This makes the water pressure really poor even when the shower is off. The temperature control seems to just change the water flow rate to alter the temperature. So when I say "minimum" I mean minimum setting for temperature which equates to maximum flow rate. The comment about winter temps is an interesting one as "Big Clive", during dismantling one reported the "Low" setting was for "summer" when the tap water is a few degrees warmer. So maybe, it will just be a bit like it is now for the next few months and when the mains water (and the water sitting in the warm attic) cools down it will be fine. The heating system is oil fired central heating with an heat exchanger coil in the "hot tank" in a cupboard upstairs. There is even less pressure from it. In fact the shower attachment on the normal hot tap won't even flow when you lift it up to showering height, it literally stops. The heating upgrade is basically to modernize the system. Modern systems that are being installed around here are natural gas (utility fed from the street, used to be known as "town gas" when it was made from coal) boilers and a mains pressurised system, so the attic cistern comes out and the whole central heating and hot water system is fed from a mains water inlet. So around here that's about 2-3 bar (I think). It's going to cost me about £3000 but £2400 of that is interest free credit for a year. |
| MosherIV:
If I understand the plumbing correctly, the electric shower is fed from a water tank in the loft :palm: Try connecting the electric shower to mains water, run the water in let up to the electric shower heater. Most electric showers are designed to be run from mains water. Modern house plumbing no longer use a tank in the loft. The whole house is run off mains water. |
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