New Loft Shower Room

[Big Gee]

We are getting an additional new bathroom with sink and shower in the loft. We currently have a Puma 80e combi. Our mains pressure is 1.5 bar and has a flowrate of 15lpm. I can't decide what new system to have installed to allow for two concurrent showers:

1. Replace the combi with a better one (e.g Worcester CDII 35) - £3,000
2. Replace the combi with a system boiler and unvented hot water cylinder - £4,500
3. Install a non-pumped electric shower fed from cold mains and plumb the new sink hot supply to the current combi - £much cheaper

My view is that #2 is the best but is it worth the extra money over #1? Option #3 would be much cheaper but suspect that I will be dissapointed with the performance of the new shower.

Any opinions?

 

[ChrisR]

How did you measure your meagre mains performance? Is the pressure limited by a poor supply pipe? (ie what's the pressure at zero flow?)

An electric shower would give you backup hot water when the combi fails, without drawing too much (4 l/min) from the mains in use, so has its attractions.

An unvented cylinder wouldn't give you more than a spurt of increased pressure. YOu can't take more out of it than the mains can put in.

 

[Big Gee]

Thanks for the response.

The mains measurements where taken by the British Gas engineer that suggested the system/unvented cylinder solution. From what I gather they are fairly typical for the London area.

 

[JPC]

i fiited an electric shower in my loft/3rd floor. get a quality one 10kw or above and its ok..not a power shower but ok..much cheaper and as stated its a back up for boiler failure

 

[Big Gee]

Thanks JPC, good to know that someone has had ok results with the electric option in a loft. I have been looking at something like the Mira Sport 10.8Kw or the Mira ATL 9.8Kw. At around £250 it's probably worth a go as I could always upgrade the boiler at a later stage.