Lack of hot water to shower!!

[jawuk]

We have moved in to a new house about 4 months ago, the house was built and lived in by a builder who seems to have done all the work himself!. We currently have a standard 1050 x 450 indirect vented hot water cylinder in the loft that supplies the hot water for the house and to the shower via a Salamander ESP 75 pump (4 bedroom large detached house), the pressure at the shower head is fine.

The tank is heated via the boiler and we also have an immersion heater to heat the water more quickly, if needed. The complaint I have is that the cylinder seems to quickly empty of hot water.

My wife will shower for about 5 - 6 minutes and then I will shower straight after for the same amount of time, but the hot water usually runs out. Is it just a case of replacing our cylinder for a larger one, or are there other solutions available?

 

[Burnerman]

As you are finding, pumped showers can use one hell of a lot of water!
A simple and cheap way of giving you more HW is to replace your immersion heater - which is likely to be an 11" one, with a 27" one, and if your cylinder has its own thermostat strapped on, make sure its set at 60 degrees.
John

 

[jawuk]

The cylinder stat is set to 60. If i replaced the immersion as you say how would this affect if it wasn't used and the hot water was heated only by the boiler?

Would increasing the size of the hot water cylinder help?

 

[Burnerman]

A longer (27") immersion heater would give you enough hot water I think - but naturally the boiler would do the same but it may take a little longer. Turn the boiler HW stat up a bit if it has one.
A larger cylinder would give you more hot water, to be sure, but it would also take longer to heat.
John