The best shower for me?

Hi Guys,

I am moving house and at present the shower is fed from the hot water tank. The CH/HW are powered by a conventional gas boiler (not a combi). The shower is very low on pressure and I am wanting to fit a new more powerful shower.

What are my options?

I have heard that power showers can be very expensive to run (I am on metered water) and that if i add a pump i will also need to add an extra CW tank to accomodate it, is this true?

Cold water mains pressure is good, so is it more practical to just add a high-wattage electric shower, will this give me the improvement i require?

Are there other options out there?

I do not want to spend the earth but this will be done as part of a complete new bathroom so rewiring/replumbing is not an issue.

Thanks in advance for your help?

Thanks for that Paul, though i am afraid i may have missed the point.

It was an interesting read and a lesson in how not to ask questions on here but unfortunately only made things more confusing as i have never heard of venturi showers.

Any further assistance would be gratefully recieved.

I have searched this topic but to no avail.

Maybe a review of this sort of information may be worthy of a sticky?

Is there any more information i could give that would help?

If you want a powerful shower, you want to deliver more hot water. So the "expense" of a power shower is a red herring. You want hot water, you will have to pay for it.

An electric shower will provide less hot water and cost more.

A Combi boiler will deliver less hot water.

You could make sure that you have a good big shower head with good big holes in it; you should look at the cold water tank and see how much higher it is than the shower - the higher the better.

You could also look at the existing pipe runs to make sure they are not slowed down with lots of elbows, and do not have small-bore service valves on them.

JohnD said:

If you want a powerful shower, you want to deliver more hot water. So the "expense" of a power shower is a red herring. You want hot water, you will have to pay for it.

An electric shower will provide less hot water and cost more.

A Combi boiler will deliver less hot water.

You could make sure that you have a good big shower head with good big holes in it; you should look at the cold water tank and see how much higher it is than the shower - the higher the better.

You could also look at the existing pipe runs to make sure they are not slowed down with lots of elbows, and do not have small-bore service valves on them.

Click to expand...

I enquire about expense as i have read that 'power showers' can use absolutely massive amounts of water, equivalent of a bath, in very short periods of time. So although you may find it a 'red herring' i am merely enquiring if this is true. I am on metered water unfortunately and have to find a happy medium.

I have read a seperate thread on this forum that discuses single impeller pumps that just run on the hot water. Is this a viable option? What sort of flow rates are we talking? Would an average hot water tank/supply be able to cope with this or do i need to check for a certain bore/capacity? Do i require a minimum pressure of mains cold water to prevent getting too much hot water in the flow?

As stated before i will be having this work professionally fitted but i would like to know what results to expect from this job, best methods, etc. Also as previously said i am completely remodelling the bathroom so know is the time to get it right.

Thanks in advance.

Hi there
I was the one that started "that" post-No more said on that.

This is not as easy as some may think-I am still having probelms, myself-granted I now know abit more but the problems of not knowing what shower to fit still remains-
I do now know -the concept of venturi shower that pulls hot water via the cold water using a valve-sorry-very non technical but u could see:
http://www.tubz.co.uk/venturi_shower.htm
In my case I just want to do a straight swap on the shower-as I have two exposed pipes-my old croydex VSI is simply not working.

basically what I learned is:
1. There are many different shower types
these being power shower, electric, thermostat, other mixer/bath showers and mmany more-i do have the trevi shower catalogue!
2. electric is cheap(even for me!)but no good.
3. power showers need a pump-I have had this in a rented house but it makes a noise when u turn it on and my shower cap gets blown off but still very good but expensive(the pumps are)

4. it all depends on your current system in which your case is like mine-
what I recommend is indeed the venturi system-
what system well EVERYONE (not shouting-emphasing) suggests trevi boost but there over £300-there is also new team jetstream £200 and croydex h20 BUT this has been discontinued
what I still dont get is the jetstream did say main cold pressure not gravity fed cold water-(and I am sure I will have to alter pipes-which can be done but I wanted a straight swap)
also no one has really commented on the Croydex h20 effectivness as a comparison to my old VSI Croydex-if its the same pressure etc then that will do-as i can get them but they are second hand and I only want the shower to work for a year or two-cheap YES but I am moving-in your case u need something more so..

Thanks for that diybot.

I will look into the viability of a Venturi Shower, something i had never heard of until the last few days.

If your thinking of getting a jetstream i suggest seeing it in real life not just a picture it is a bloody disgusting looking lump of plastic. Also newteam have been bought out by Bristan and the reundancy notices are going out so this may not be avialable for much longer.

Thanks for those words of warning Namsag,i'll bear that in mind.