electric and boiler fed showers in same enclosure?

[ATTQ]

Being a belt and braces guy I'm wondering about fitting both in one. Is there any reason to do or not to do? Any solution I should know about other than having an electric unit weirdly near a mains one to confuse guests? There will be a couple of electric showers in en-suites in the house so as far as having a back up if boiler down thats covered anyway. So please tell me I'm being stupid for even considering this and save me some work.

That said with government hating on gas maybe having the wiring run for electric is a good idea while the floor is up even if not installing

 

[robinbanks]

That said with government hating on gas maybe having the wiring run for electric is a good idea

Mmm but electric showers are sub standard compared to other forms of heating water and if you go green, go electric, you'll be looking at a heat pump (3kw consumption) not a resistance heater (9 kw consumption)

I thought the same, about backup, but then figured rather than spend a few hundred on a decent electric shower and then have to run a cable out for it I would just put a high powered inline electric heater into the hot in the utility where it's near the hot manifold and the electricity supply, then I could back up supply all the hot taps etc in the house if the heat pump and immersion had an issue. For me as my hot water is stored in a tank it makes less sense to have an inline heater (though sometimes there is an urgent need for hot shower water and no time to wait for the HP+immersion; consequence of bad planning as we manually decide when to charge the HW tank rather than have an automated system do it) but for you maybe more sensible if your HW is on demand

 

[ATTQ]

I thought the same, about backup, but then figured rather than spend a few hundred on a decent electric shower and then have to run a cable out for it I would just put a high powered inline electric heater into the hot in the utility where it's near the hot manifold and the electricity supply, then I could back up supply all the hot taps etc in the house if the heat pump and immersion had an issue. For me as my hot water is stored in a tank it makes less sense to have an inline heater but for you maybe more if your HW is on demand

That makes more sense as washing up with no hot water isn't really tenable either.

I'm turning the back room where the boiler is into a workshop and will have an electric spur suitable for welding, so actually I can make sure the juice is enough for a high power heater as well, but probably not install one yet. But it would have to be a seriously powerful heater to replace the gas boiler.

Seems to be the case that instantaneous heaters are more efficient than heating with lower power in a tank as there will be heat loss plus size of tank to consider.

 

[robinbanks]

But it would have to be a seriously powerful heater to replace the gas boiler

It doesn't need to be a boiler replacement; 10kW ish would provide enough hot water for hands, pots, or a thermostatic shower, but it wouldn't deliver the performance of a 30kW boiler, it's just a tide-over until the boiler can be fixed. Fitting an electric boiler that could match the boiler performance would be fairly financially ruinous to install and use, but it really doesn't need a like for like to provide adequacy in that 0.001% chance scenario

 

[ATTQ]

still i think for long term i'll run a wire and make sure i have a spare point on the consumer unit to change to electric shower one day at this point its easy to do

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Seems to be the case that instantaneous heaters are more efficient than heating with lower power in a tank as there will be heat loss plus size of tank to consider.

The limit on instantaneous water heating, is usually that of your mains power supply. Don't forget, that as well as supplying the instantaneous system, there needs to be some capacity eft for other things, like lights, and kettles. If your system must accommodate both forms of heated water, then a stored water system can work well for that, with dual electric elements.

 

[cdbe]

I fitted a nice electric shower in my rental property, savvy tenants stuck one of those things from Argos on the bath taps.

 

[ATTQ]

I fitted a nice electric shower in my rental property, savvy tenants stuck one of those things from Argos on the bath taps.

bath!?!? haven't seen one of those in a while

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

bath!?!? haven't seen one of those in a while

They are for storing coal in.

 

[cdbe]

4k (just in materials) bathroom installation, bath used as a bath exactly once in 3 years!

But it's a large 4 bed house so we'd struggle to sell without.