Electric shower from the hot water tank?

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When we moved into our house there was an electric shower in the ensuite. We have a standard hot water system with a tank, not a combi and the main bathroom has a mixer shower working from the hot water tank.

What we have noticed is when the there is no hot water in the tank the electric shower also goes cold. How can this be? I assumed the element in the shower unit was warming the water.

Any help to understand why this works like this would be appreciated.

Thanks
Simon
 
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Can you post make/model. A electric shower would normally be classed as one with a heating elenent, normally 8.5/9.5kw with cold water supply only either from the mains or from the CWST, in which case it will have its own internal pump so one would be classed as a mains electric shower and the other, a pumped electric shower.
Your shower probably has a cold and hot water supply, the cold from the CWST, the hot from the HW storage cylinder with its own internal pump so you will need hot water from the cylinder, the cold may be from the mains and the hot from a unvented HW cylinder (no pump) but I havn't seen them around here.
 
Hello and thanks for replying. The shower is a Mira event XS thermostatic.
 
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Thanks. So I'm clear. The hot water feed is coming from the cyclinder and the cold feed is coming from the cold water storage tank (not the mains cold water)?
 
No element in your Mira, its just a pump
Sorry, its been a few weeks but this got me thinking. Do I need an identical shower (just a pump) or can I buy an electric shower that is a pump and has an element? I might be asking garbage so please excuse me if this is not right.

Essentially, it would make things easier to have a shower that doesnt use the hot water from the tank.
 
You could do the latter, do know though, just because it has a pump, it won't perform any better than a normal electric shower run from the mains. This is primarily down to the fact that the element can only heat so much water at a time and that is defined by the size of heating element.

The output (water flow) of an electric, pumped or standard, shower with element will be a lot less then your current shower.
 
You could do the latter, do know though, just because it has a pump, it won't perform any better than a normal electric shower run from the mains. This is primarily down to the fact that the element can only heat so much water at a time and that is defined by the size of heating element.

The output (water flow) of an electric, pumped or standard, shower with element will be a lot less then your current shower.
@Madrab, thank you for your response. Glad to know i can do what i wanted. I'll check the output of both the old and new models to compare. Thanks again.
 
Sorry, its been a few weeks but this got me thinking. Do I need an identical shower (just a pump) or can I buy an electric shower that is a pump and has an element? I might be asking garbage so please excuse me if this is not right.

Essentially, it would make things easier to have a shower that doesnt use the hot water from the tank.

Why would it be easier? Does your hot water cylinder heat up slowly? I'm trying to think why you might want to swap. I've never had a decent shower in an electric one, so I'm probably being a bit prejudiced here.

Also, will you have to upgrade the wire to the shower so that it can handle 10 KW? And will it need a bigger MCB in the fuse box?
 
Why would it be easier? Does your hot water cylinder heat up slowly? I'm trying to think why you might want to swap. I've never had a decent shower in an electric one, so I'm probably being a bit prejudiced here.

Also, will you have to upgrade the wire to the shower so that it can handle 10 KW? And will it need a bigger MCB in the fuse box?
I meant easier because as a household we wouldn't be fighting over the same tank of hot water.

From the sounds of it, that might be the lesser of the evils because a really weak shower is not great. Your advice is to go for the power shower vs electric shower?
 
I meant easier because as a household we wouldn't be fighting over the same tank of hot water.

From the sounds of it, that might be the lesser of the evils because a really weak shower is not great. Your advice is to go for the power shower vs electric shower?

I don't know how limited your hot water situation is. I'm lucky not to have that problem, and would never voluntarily change to an electric shower.

Is there anything you can do to boost your hot water? Do you have an immersion heater? Do you know how big your cylinder is and how long it takes to reheat? What temperature is the boiler set to? How hot is the water from the taps?
 

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