Need electric shower + heating help!

mrbios

mrbios

mrbios

Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2003
Posts
16,199
Location
Gloucestershire
Hello Plumbers and/or Electricians of OcuK.

I've got two problems with a house I've just moved into.....

First of all, the radiator in the bathroom fails to get hot when the rest of the radiators in the house are turned on, soon as i turn off a bunch of other radiators in the house it starts warming up. It's a really old radiator with no thermostatic control, just a valve on either end for blocking water flow.

Second problem is the electric shower, two problems with this....it's one of those ones with 3 settings indicated by pictures of flames, these being: 1 blue, 1 red, 2 red. As i turn the dial from off to on the lights flicker/dim, and increasingly do that as it's turned up. The second problem with this piece of junk is that as soon as you turn the water up to anywhere near warm the water pressure drops dramatically to the point it's more like having a large dog dribbling on your head :/ Any ideas what needs doing to resolve this? Is the shower just a piece of junk that needs replacing with something different?

I'm unsure if the shower is fed directly from the mains or if it's fed from the cistern in the loft, the pipe in to it comes down from the loft but i don't think i ever hear any sort of cistern refill when i turn it off like i do after running a bath. Lastly it's a Triton biarritz II if that helps.

This is a rented property so i know i can't really do much myself, but the landlord appears to be a bit of a first timer when it comes to dealing with issues so i'm trying to get as much information for him to go on as possible.
 
The shower has a enclosed element which heats the water, the little tank it has inside it only holds about two cup's of water. If you turn the heat up, it will take longer to heat the water, in turn slowing the water rate down. The bigger the shower (in KW) the bigger the element.

IDK what the problem would be about the flickering light(s), for the price of getting someone in to fix that one just replace it. Switch off the isolator for the shower and unclip the front to see if there are is something wrong internally.
 
Sounds like one of the heater elements could have failed in the shower. Normally means replacing the entire unit as the parts can be expensive.
 
Cheers chaps, as for replacing the shower, what would be a good one to go with? I've been reading that it depends on the way the house is plumbed, but the plumbing of this one confuses me somewhat...

There's a water tank in the attic, an airing cupboard with an immersion tank upstairs and a boiler in a cupboard downstairs (REALLY old boiler, 1970s built house with a boiler that's quite tall stood on the floor in the center of the house in an enclosed area) the immersion heater switch is set to off and apparently i only need to use this in the summer for some reason.....I really need a better explanation of how it all works from someone i think :p

That's about the best i can really explain the setup, if anyones able to give me an idea as to what type of shower (low pressure, high pressure etc) i need from that then thank you.
 
Just stating the obvious and I don't mean to sound patronising, but did you bleed the radiator in question? That's usually the problem.
 
Yep tried bleeding. I tried googling before coming here and did the obvious bits that a non professional can do first, then read one or two things i didn't understand such as balancing the system etc so thought it best to ask :p

And never any harm in pointing out the obvious, im completely useless when it comes to plumbing.... Plumong scares me more than the electrics do.

EDIT: looool plumong, never a more apt typo
 
Causing the light to dim is probably a small drop in voltage as the current being drawn to the shower is a heavy load. This is not abnormal i have seen it before however if the drop in light level in the fitting is really significant it could be that the cable feeding the shower is not the correct size.

Replace the shower unit but id check on the cable size and the miniature circuit breaker / fuse size to check your max load you are able to have on the circuit itself and then purchase a unit to suit.
 
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Your shower is off the cold water mains. For your heating, have a look to see what speed the heating pump is on. If it is on 3 try balancing the heating by turning one of the radiator valves down on one side of all the radiators that work. Not completely off but nearly off so you can still hear water going through them.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but why can't a shower use a warm water feed? It seems like the obvious solution to many peoples' problems in winter with colder water entering the shower unit => turning heat up => reducing flow to a trickle. Surely if the hot water system was used, at least partially, it would stop this problem?
 
cork-spotters said:
Mix them?
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It wouldn't be worth it. Also it would make the shower more expensive, require more plumbing and the hot water would never be guaranteed to be there so you'd constantly need to adjust the temperature. Having a nice simple guaranteed and consistent cold feed is a lot easier to deal with.
 
Close down all your other radiators so they allow the bathroom one to take some of the flow better. That'sreffectively what balancing is.
 
This is what worked for me, after following a Youtube guide. You have two valves on a radiator - one allows the user to control the heat, the other is a lockshield valve, more for an engineer to balance the system.

Upstairs only, close the lockshield valves by removing the cap and screwing the brass screw clockwise until it closes/stops. Now unscrew the lockshield by quarter a turn, and no more. Do the same for all the upstairs radiators, but nowhere else.

For me, that method allowed a living room radiator, which was cooler than the rest, to properly warm up. The upstairs radiators were hogging the flow, so by restricting them the rest of the radiators have a chance. For me, I didn't notice any difference in how fast the upstairs radiators warmed up - but they might take slightly longer.
 
Ceryndrion said:
Because warm water systems have much lower pressure
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That completely depends on what the hot water system is. You get low pressure hot water from mavity fed systems, but you get high pressure hot water from combi and unvented systems.

If you have a combi boiler then you'll almost certainly get a far better shower running the warm off that than you will off any electric shower, which are invariably completely ****.
 
Robbie G said:
That completely depends on what the hot water system is. You get low pressure hot water from mavity fed systems, but you get high pressure hot water from combi and unvented systems.

If you have a combi boiler then you'll almost certainly get a far better shower running the warm off that than you will off any electric shower, which are invariably completely ****.
Click to expand...

+1

Electric showers are utter crap in most cases however they are often the best solution but this depends entirely on your hot water system.
By the sounds of it you have a vented hot water system with you saying you have a tank in the attic and a cylinder in the airing cupboard. So essentially with this system you have very low pressure hot water, hence why you need mains fed cold for your current shower.
You may get away with a power shower or a mixer shower and separate pump which would give much better flow although it really depends on the size of your tank and the heating capacity of your boiler etc.
Doesn't sound like a problem which can be easily solved with your electric shower. As said before, parts for these (especially elements) are very expensive and not worth the hassle to repair.
If I were you I would consult with a local plumber and ask them to take a look at your system to figure out the best option.
 
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