Electric shower repair gone wrong.

[cabinscooter]

My son has an ancient electric shower put in by a previous owner at least 30 years ago. When he moved in about 20 years ago, the shower wasn't working and I replaced the inlet solenoid, an easy job. I am no plumber but I can tackle things like that. In doing so I was shocked (pun intended) to discover that the electrical supply had not only been taken from the live side of the main consumer unit isolator switch but via only a rewirable fuse. In a nod to safety and updating, I replaced the fuse with an RCD.
Yes, I agree, it should have been replaced and rewired right then.
After about another 10 years I replaced the solenoid again. He said the other day that the shower had stopped working yet again so he obtained yet another solenoid
and we tackled the job but this time the solenoid was firmly stuck on the valve stem. After a lot of gentle coaxing and WD40 the coil began to move , then my worst fears, "We don't want to break the valve do we?" happened. The valve top broke off and water sprayed out. We both moved unusually quickly and ran downstairs to turn off the water main.
One lucky thing is that the shower is over the bath so therewas no water damage. As I suspected, there was no separate isolator for the shower supply so wewere stuck with no water for the house and a broken valve on a Sunday afternoon.
The other lucky part to this story is that he had plumbing insurance and despite showers being excluded from the policy, they came that Sunday evening, plugged off the feed to the shower and restored the water supply
The shower is now a write off as it is so old so we are looking at replacing it with a wall mounted mixer or a mixer tap set.
,

 

[jj4091]

A wall mounted thermostatic mixer will be a lot better than a mixer tap. But you will need to tell us how your hot and cold feed ( mains cold I presume ) to the bathroom what sort of hot water system you have, is the pressure and flow rate good. And how you tend to use the shower.

 

[cabinscooter]

They have a relatively new combi boiler (in what was the airing cupboard) directly behind the wall on which the mixer shower would be mounted. So hot and cold supplies are there. Not sure of the mains pressure but I assume it is more than 0.1 bar in most mixer specs. How can I find out?
There are five people in the household who would use the shower.

 

[denso13]

A mixer shower on a combi will be fine.

 

[cabinscooter]

Is there any rule of thumb check I can do on the water pressure without special equipment? We live in the same area (less than a mile away) and mains pressure is good and have a mixer shower which works fine.

 

[denso13]

Litres per minute flow rate would give an indication but that won't tell you the pressure.

 

[cabinscooter]

Mira are currently offering £110 installation of their showers - seems too good to be true. There will be many conditions of course and I assume it is for a direct swap with an existing mixer shower and little or no pipework mods. I believe Mira is a good make (judging by the prices). The original shower that came with our new build house (43 years ago) was a Mira and worked well for possibly 30 years. We now have a Triton bar mixer which are cheap and cheerful (see my thread 'Shower restyled hall ceiling') but works ok and easy to renew. Our water has a very high mineral content although hardness is rated only medium and taps etc. get a rapid scale build up but only in the hot water, interestingly. not the cold. On a previous Triton mixer we had, the temperature control cartridge got scaled up very quickly but they are easy to work on and cheap to replace.

 

[denso13]

There will be many conditions of course and I assume it is for a direct swap with an existing mixer shower and little or no pipework mods.

Correct, it'll be for straight swaps.

 

[cabinscooter]

Would a more expensive exposed mixer shower be less prone to scaling up? I see you can pay from less than £100 to over £500 for what seems basically the same thing with some good brands near the lower end Like Triton and Mira. The Triton showers we have had were fine except the hot water control stiffens up after 3/4 years, I'm sure due to scale. I know you can remove the cartridge to descale or replace. Is it worth paying £500?

 

[flameport]

Would a more expensive exposed mixer shower be less prone to scaling up?

No. Limescale destroys everything, and doesn't care whether the part was £50 or £500.

However if someone did pay vast sums for some overpriced shower, they would then be compelled to spend even more repairing it as they would convince themselves that replacing the whole expensive deal would be a waste of money.

 

[dilalio]

Get one of these and when the mixer scales up and fails, just replace the bar mixer.

BES.co.uk | Next Day Delivery On 15,000 + Plumbing Supplies

Order Thermostatic Bar Valve Shower Kit - Circular Handset/Soaker from our Gas and Plumbing Supplies online at BES.co.uk. Low Prices, Free Next Day Delivery Available, 15k Plus Products in stock. PN: 27649.

www.bes.co.uk

 

[cabinscooter]

Get one of these and when the mixer scales up and fails, just replace the bar mixer.

BES.co.uk | Next Day Delivery On 15,000 + Plumbing Supplies

Order Thermostatic Bar Valve Shower Kit - Circular Handset/Soaker from our Gas and Plumbing Supplies online at BES.co.uk. Low Prices, Free Next Day Delivery Available, 15k Plus Products in stock. PN: 27649.

www.bes.co.uk

That is exactly what I've been doing with ours. I've replaced the bar mixer. I'm no plumber but even I can do it..