Faulty shower - water running out of the unit, can i fix it?

[mikeyw]

Hi,

Our shower has started leaking water out of it when in use, this is obviously worrying as its an electric unit. Is this something i can fix ?

The water coming out of the back runs down the wall and also down the feed pipe as you can see in the pic.

Whats the best thing to do here ?

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

 

[seco services]

Isolate the water supply by the isolation valve on the pipe.
Isolate the electric supply.
Then you can remove cover and check where the leak is from.

Looking at the pic it's poss the solenoid valve assembly or the stabiliser valve.
Looking at the condition of the shower hose you could have blown the prd.

 

[mikeyw]

Cheers seco - will it be fairly obvious where the leak is even without the flow of water ?

 

[seco services]

If you know where to look.

Sometimes you can tell or sometimes you need to run the shower
for a min.
That looks like quite a leak.
Give us a straight on pic with cover off.

 

[mikeyw]

Cheers Seco - i'll do that in the morning & post

 

[seco services]

 

[mikeyw]

Not sure what you needed to see Seco so a few different views :-

That plastic flange see to the bottom of most pics is fairly easy to move about - not sure if that is a factor

Many thanks,
Mike

 

[seco services]

The thin plastic part at the bottom this is just a cover to protect the solenoid coil.
It's pretty much dried out now but by what i can see the water is coming from high up poss the stabiliser valve.
That is the white part just below the pcb, on the top of the stab valve is a plastic pin that rises and activates the micro switch on the bottom of the pcb they are common for the seals to fail and leak from the pin.

You may need to reconnect the cable to the front cover and hold the cover and run the shower to get a def location of the leak.

 

[mikeyw]

Troubles is it could be anywhere as it really does flow out at quite a rate and maybe flowing up a bit at first due to the pressure.

Is it safe to have it pouring out with the lid off ?

doesnt help we have a metal bath either...

 

[seco services]

It's not something i'd advise if you don't feel safe doing it.
It's poss it was only due to the cover being on it's sprayed up inside.

The other way round it is shut the isolation valve.
put shower on the cold setting only.
turn shower on then slowly open isolation valve.

Then you won't get a force of water leaking.

 

[mikeyw]

I did the test and it appears the leak is coming from the white plastic part at the centre of the unit, are replacements of this part available to buy and customer fit ?

 

[seco services]

I did the test and it appears the leak is coming from the white plastic part at the centre of the unit,

The stabiliser valve as i said.
is it leaking from the top.

This part is available about £30 +p/p
depends on what kw your shower is 9.5kw or 10.5 kw.

I would say yours is the 9.5kw.

 

[Mike10]

I fixed something very similar for my aunt.

The top of the white housing in the middle where the top 'lid' was fitted had a leak and it was running down and out of the bottom of the unit.
I took the white part out of the unit and when I removed the screws and took the top off there was a rubber 'O' ring in there that had become compressed and was no longer providing an adequate seal.

As I didn't have the correct replacement I carefully reduced the thickness of the top cover by rubbing on some sand paper on a flat surface and refitted.

The reduction in thickness enabled the 'O' ring to be compressed further and this stopped the leak.

Replacing the 'O' ring would no doubt have been better but this has worked for 6 months or so now.

Mike.

 

[dormermike]

Everytime i see inside a electric shower unit it amazes me - firstly how lethal it looks as its hardly waterproof and secondly how the regs can be so anal elsewhere... just doesn't look safe to me!

 

[mikeyw]

Thanks guys - will hoik that bad boy out and see if i can get a replacement o ring for it.