Electric water heating - alternatives to immersion?

[joefife]

My flat does not have gas, only electric. The water heater is an immersion system, which takes a while to heat up. It also empties quite quickly, so while the first person to shower in a morning has lovely hot water, the third person showers in cold water.

It'll be a holiday let from October, so I really need a system to allow the full capacity of six people to shower in hot water In any other property, I'd use a combi-boiler, but since there is no gas, I'm stuck.

Is there an electric system to generate instant ongoing endless supplies of hot water?

An electric shower isn't out of the question - but I've yet to find one that doesn't dribble out a miserable supply of luke-warm water. I'd rather not replace the power shower with something bad.

Any ideas?

 

[TCCHeating]

You could consider upgrading to a bigger hot water cylinder, or installing 2 cylinders in parallel, with seperate immersion heaters, but if it is a holiday let, your cheapest option is to look at installing the most powerful electric shower you can find (about 12kw is the max i think) you should get more than a dribble out of these even when incoming water supply is very cold. But it will obviously never give you anything like the flow rate you are getting at the moment!

 

[OwainDIYer]

A lot depends on the type of showerhead you have:

the average eight-minute shower used 62 litres of hot water, and some power showers can use up to 136 litres, compared with an average bath's 80 litres... a 'waterwise shower' – getting the job done in four minutes under a water-efficient showerhead – uses just 32 litres. -

http://www.waterwise.org.uk/news.ph...gures-and-misconceptions#sthash.T7Ump41S.dpuf

Using the average 60 litres, you'd need at least a 360 litre cylinder to be able to supply all the showers sequentially without reheating time.

For six people you'd probably need two showers and if you do have a second shower room have one using stored hot water and one using instantaneous electric.

 

[joefife]

Hi Owain and TCC, thanks for your replies.

Unfortunately there isn't any room for a second immersion tank.

Before I resign myself to an electric shower - I wondered about this device: http://www.energybulbs.co.uk/redring+12kw+powerstream+instant+water+heater+(rp12)/2821466957

As a layman, that gives the impression of providing instant, plentiful hot water... is this basically an electric combi-boiler equivalent?

 

[Phill Peck]

No it's basically an electric shower.

Does your tank have just 1 immersion?

You should look at fast recovery cylinders.

I recently fitted a salon master unvented hw cylinder in a hairdressers
It has 3x4kw immersions and heats the entire tank from cold in around half an hour so they never run out. They were short on space for more stored water aswell.

Probably a bit ott for your flat but somewhere between the 2 could work well

 

[joefife]

Thanks for clarifying!

Having had a think, I suspect the only solution is to get the best electric shower I can find

 

[muggles]

Go for the Mira Sport Max 10.8kw with Airboost