Showering woes --Please help

[Jennig]

Im not from teh UK originally (canada) and i dont understand too much about electric showers....

HOWEVER, I am pregnant heavily and i REALLY am desperate for a new shower one that has pressure we just moved into a place with a Smmmmalllll water tank (hot) and it barely fills 1/4 of a bath therefore i need a good shower.

We have been told ours is knackered.. basically the filtre is clean but something is wrong with it. I had the mains replaced that go into the house as they were rusted and have been replaced i htink with this plastic piping? and the cold water is very good into the house now

Anyway, I want to know what my options are for a shower...

I was lookinga t power showers, i saw the 10.8 regular electric showers... But my concern is that replacing with a higher voltage electric might not solve the LOW pressure issue.

So what can i do? My loft is just outside my bathroom so could they put another hot water tank up there as its to my understanding that power showers need hot and cold water?

Or can you get a pump to boost a regular electric shower?

Again im confused and REALLY need this fixed (its hard to shower with a trickle and youve got a HUGE bump in the front of you)

Thank you for understanding and look forward to your responses!

 

[swidders]

Hi
Here are a few options with pitfalls.

1/. A higher powered electric shower will produce a stronger spray since it can heat up a greater flow of water more quickly. This is likely to require a new cable down to the consumer unit (fusebox) which may require chopping out plaster/retiling/lifting floors etc. Also, you may still find the strength of spray not fulfilling enough.

2/. Replacing the hot water cylinder and using electric pump or powershower (which is basically a pump) will produce a much better shower. However... there may not be room in the loft for a bigger hot water cylinder (or storage vessel as it's often called) and it is more than likely that you will need a bigger cold water tank to supply this, although these are often an integrated unit anyway. This is a better option, but will require a thermostatic shower mixer if you use a pump instead of a power shower. Either way, extra pipework will have to be run to the shower (for both hot and cold) and it depends on whether you want this to be surface mounted or not.

3/. You could replace the boiler (if you have a gas one) with a combination boiler which will run your central heating and also provide hot water at mains water pressure if this is good enough. This will again require some pipework to be run to your thermostatic power mixer as before. It will also mean that there will be no other water storage vessels anywhere in the house. If you have good water mains pressure, this will give you the best shower of all.

For the record, and to clarify, and electric shower heats cold water the is the only thing that feeds into it; a power shower which looks like an electric shower (a box on the wall with dials on it) is basically a pump which draws its water from the hot and cold supplies from the tanks and not the mains and subsequently regulates it at a constant temperature and flow rate; a pump is like a power shower in that it draws water from the tanks but you will need a mixer to regulate the temperature.

There are other options, which are more costly, but without knowing the size of the house etc it is difficult to comment on. The first option is the cheapest, and at a rough guesstimate the latter two will come in at approx £2000, maye more or less depending on the specifications, and not counting repairs to decoration etc...

Hope this gives you a starting point.

Bon chance

 

[Jennig]

Ok let me see if i can make it clearer to get the best advice:

Its a small tank its heated by eco 7 (hot water) there is no cold water tank.. it comes in from the mains..well i mean ive never seen a tank anywhere else in the house so this is what i assume.

as for the electrics that odesnt matter as the "box" is actually under the stairs which is directly under the bathroom.

its a 3 bdrm semi detached cottage the loft has a lot of room i can stand full erect in there...

My question is since i do have such a small water tank... rather then replacing that tank could i just have an extra hot water tank up in my loft? (again im no pro so that might sound silly!)


Thanks again for the advice!

 

[mogget]

Its a small tank its heated by eco 7 (hot water) there is no cold water tank.. it comes in from the mains..well i mean ive never seen a tank anywhere else in the house so this is what i assume.

Do you mean you have a combination (fortic) cylinder like this one?

It has the cold water tank built into the top, and the hot water is stored in the bottom part.

 

[Jennig]

Nope.. mine is a cylinder tank (probably 50 years old lol) it only does hot water....

there is no tank in the house for cold water at all...

the tank used to be heated i believe by fire place but they covered that up and its heated only by Eco7

 

[mogget]

If there is a cylinder, something must be supplying it with cold water - otherwise it would have nothing to heat!

Somewhere near the bottom of the cylinder there will be a pipe attached (not the ones that came from the fire). This will be the cold feed to the cylinder.

If you follow this pipe back, you will find where the cold water is coming from.

If there is a pipe rising from near the top of the cylinder into the ceiling (a vent pipe) then there will be a cold water tank somewhere.

We need to determine exactly what system you have before any recommendations can be made regarding the shower.

 

[Jennig]

yes there is a pipe from teh top and bottom of the tank... My husband reckons there is a tank up in the attic (we havent lived here very long!!) but that would make sense as sometimes i can hear water filling up in my upstiars bedroom... if that makes sense.

thank you again!

 

[swidders]

In which case, now armed with a few more facts, i refer you to my previous solutions. It is not customary to install a dedicated cylinder purely for the shower.

 

[Jennig]

Thanks and im sorry about not knowing what facts were needed...

My issue is if i place a power shower in our current hot water tank will not support it.. and its built into a tiny space!

Could a seperate hot water tank be installed in the loft dedicated soley for the bathroom? otherwise i really dont see any solution to my problem other then ripping out a whole wall to make space for a bigger tank

 

[swidders]

Yes it should be possible, but unusual, if push come to shove. You may be able to get a heat store that keeps and thus supplies hot water at mains pressure - keep posting on this forum since it's beyond my knowledge base. Your are right about the pump not working for your current tank since it sounds like it would drain it of hot water too quickly. Again, it does sound likely that you will need an extra cold water tank higher up than the cylinder, since this is what is supplying water to it, and this needs to be large enough to ensure that it (the hot water tank) doesn't "run dry" which basically means that your shower will suddenly stop running since it has no water left to give.

The information that you provided was that your hot water comes from an electic immersion heater in your cylinder, and not gas which I have accidently assumed for some reason.

It comes down to how much you want to spend at this moment in time, given that you have recently moved and you have other clear commitments in the not too distant future!! Plus you may not really want to be having too much messy work going on just as you are, er, nesting in preparation. Maybe the quickest and least obtrusive and probably cheapest way for the time being will be to go for the more powerful electric shower which i originally described.

Hope this has helped a bit and all is well!

 

[mogget]

If the current cylinder is only able to supply a quarter of a bathful, I think you should be looking at getting this fixed.

Economy 7 cylinders often have two immersion heaters, one at the bottom which should heat the water at night, and one nearer the top with which you can top-up the heat during the day. It's possible that the bottom heater is not working.

If the flow from the hot tap slows down after several minutes, the problem would be with the cold water tank in the attic. If the water still flows quickly but goes cold, this won't be the problem.

It's possible to install a shower pump with a shower-head intended for an electric shower. This would give a powerful 'needle-jet' type shower without emptying the tanks too quickly.

 

[Jennig]

Yes its an old house... and the tank CAN be boosted but this costs a fortune! i.e why its an eco 7 heater.
and the manual boost takes ages to heat.

the cylinder works just fine its just old! We looked at getting a new tank but we thoughtif we had a decent shower then the hot water wasnt really an issue.

the water stays hot and flows good just runs out when the tank is empty! you got to think as soon as you start using the hot water it starts filling up again.

So would the shower pump your talking about what would i look for just so i have an idea what im talking about? Would you buy a electric shower and then add a pump to it? Can you give me a link or something i can go see?

 

[mogget]

If the cylinder is working properly, your lack of hot water is caused by one thing: your unwillingness to pay for the fuel to heat it.

You don't get something for nothing, any hot water you use is going to cost you. Same fuel, same cost. A litre of water from the tank, or a litre of water from an electric shower: same cost. Maybe cheaper from the tank if heated at night.

I have the distinct feeling that you've been wasting our time, when all along there has been nothing wrong with your plumbing whatsoever.

If you want to save money, add an insulating jacket or two to the cylinder.

 

[swidders]

I'm not quite there with mogget yet but just using the econ7 to heat water overnight is not really going to give you a constant supply of hot water. Heat rises as you know, and as the day goes on the water will cool, and if you don't keep boosting this up then you will clearly run out.

However, notwithstanding that, a pump is not designed to supply water to an electric shower, but is intended to provide a greater flow rate/pressure to a mixer valve - it is supplying both hot and cold water to the shower, not the cold water to the electric shower. Eg:
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/46231...mps/Contract-1-5-Bar-Pump-with-Isolators-CT50

If your intention is purely to improve the power of the shower and are happy with a bit of extra visible pipework then go for a power shower for example:
http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/mira-vigour-power-shower-191-18174

These are not recommendations, but just examples. Now, I think i can help you no more with this as i am starting to go in circles.

 

[mogget]

It's OK, I've calmed down a bit now.

I agree that if you have hot and cold tanks, either a shower pump or power shower will be vastly superior to an electric mains shower.

If you already have an electric shower, you could re-use the electrical connection to run a power shower, which would save some money. Hot and cold water would have to be supplied from their respective tanks, and the cold tank may need changing for a bigger one.

A low-flow shower-head would save water and therefore money, and would still give an invigorating shower if pumped.