shower keeps turning off

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I hope someone could give me a little guidance as I'm not the greatest DIY'er.

I have a basic shower unit, which you first pull the cord to switch on then actully press the on/off button on the wall unit.

However, everytime i press the wall unit button, it now switches the cord unit (ceiling) off and no water comes out.

I've checked what I can, ie wiring but nothing seems amiss. Nothing else has happened to the unit, this just suddenly started happening.

I wondered if there was a simple explanation before I call out someone more qualified to sort it out.

thanks in advance
 
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Is the light on the switch going out?

Loose connection on the switch maybe. Could be anywhere though so maybe better to have someone out who can check what is going on?
 
sc2005 said:
However, everytime i press the wall unit button, it now switches the cord unit (ceiling) off and no water comes out.
how do you mean? do you mean it cuts power to the ceiling switch and you have to go and reset the circuit breaker? or do you mean the actual ceiling switch itself goes off? I cant think how the ceiling switch would cut out, never heard that before, but possibly it is worn out and the current is causing it to seperate the contacts?
 
thanks for the replies.

When I press the actual button on the shower unit over the bath, the light on the cord pull goes out...

It certainly baffling me. I cannot see any loose connections, though I'm not partcularly good at this kind of stuff
 
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If the reply to ban-all-sheds question is "press the button on the shower to turn it of", I would be inclined to think it`s a poor neutral connection.
 
I will bet you a pound to a pinch of sh1te that the cables in the load side in the pull cord switch has burned out
 
yep Colport is right... press the shower unit off and the light on the cord pull comes back on.

How do you fix a Poor Neutral Connection?
 
I hope someone could give me a little guidance as I'm not the greatest DIY'er.

I have a basic shower unit, which you first pull the cord to switch on then actully press the on/off button on the wall unit.

However, everytime i press the wall unit button, it now switches the cord unit (ceiling) off and no water comes out.

I've checked what I can, ie wiring but nothing seems amiss. Nothing else has happened to the unit, this just suddenly started happening.

I wondered if there was a simple explanation before I call out someone more qualified to sort it out.

thanks in advance

I had this exact problem and this thread helped me to solve it, I nearly went out and bought a new shower unit.

The problem was in the ceiling switch, the neutral contact on the copper strip was reading a high resistance typically 35-50 ohms, should be less than
2 ohms.

I cleaned up the contact but this made no difference, also noticed overheating marks on the copper strips and the contact stud looked loose so I hit it with a hammer and surprisingly this did the trick it now reads 1.5 ohms.

Even after all this I still nipped out to Wilkinsons and got a new switch for £8.
 
Was any of the copper wiring discoloured, or was it all bright shiny copper?
 
Most likely to be the pull switch Live or Neutral input connection or the switch itself.

It could also be an overheated (possibly burnt ) connection in the CU on either Live at the fuse / MCB or the Neutral in the Neutral bar.

It would be sensible to check the CU for damage as damage on the wiring of the shower circuit in the CU could affect the safety of other circuits in the house. Please get an electrician in to do this check as there are live parts in the CU even when the main switch is OFF.
 
..... the neutral contact should be less than 2 ohms......

Where did you get a contact resistance of 2 Ohms?

As the energy dissipated by the switch is the square of the current multiplied by the resistance of the contacts, 2 Ohms is a VERY high contact resistance! - it should be at least a couple of orders of magnitude lower!

If the current drawn by the shower is 30 Amps, and the contact resistance is 2 Ohms, the switch will be trying to dissipate 30 X 30 X 2 = 1800 Watts -about the same as a 2-bar electric fire :eek:
Your 1.5 Ohms would still be over 1300 Watts

A more appropriate range of contact resistances would be about 2 milliohms, one thousandth of the value you suggest. That means the switch will dissipate about 1.8 Watts. That will still warm up the inside of an unventilated switch enclosure.

That order of resistance is probably undetectable with the average multimeter.
 
That order of resistance is probably undetectable with the average multimeter.

It is un-measurable with most multi-meters.

Contact resistance with no current through the contacts can be significantly different from the no current resistance.

Contact resistance is best calculated by measuring the voltage across the contacts when the normal operating current is flowing through the contact using an accurate milli-volt meter.
 

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