Problem with Electric Shower

[agent99]

Hi Everyone,

I am currently experiencing problems with my Wickes Aquatronic 1 plus electric shower. To give you some background, my shower is based in a 3rd floor flat and is feed by a cold water tank in loft above. The shower has worked fine since it was fitted in July of this year, but over this last week I have been unable to get hot water from the shower in the morning (7-9). As the shower was in warranty I called the company that made it and was informed that it was probably one of the following reasons that it was not working (I was also informed that if I called an engineer out and it was not a fault with the shower then I would have to pay the engineer £70):
1) I was trying to use the shower in a peak period and the water pressure would not be enough to get the hot element working? Would this be a problem after 4 months of use?
2) I need at least 20 meters of pipe between the tank and shower for the shower to get enough pressure? Once again would this be a problem after 4 months of use?

I see it as I have 2 options:
1) Call out the engineer and face the possibility of paying him £70 becuase the pressure is not great enough and there is not 10 meters of piping between the tank or shower.
2) Fit a motor (£100 +) to find out that it is a fault with the shower.

Any advice that you can offer will be greatly accepted.

Thanks

Mike

 

[hi-spec plumbing heating]

>1) I was trying to use the shower in a peak period and the water pressure would not be enough to get the hot element working? Would this be a problem after 4 months of use?

not if fed by tank. only if mains feed.


> 3rd floor flat and is feed by a cold water tank in loft above.

what is the exact distance from the loft to shower ?

 

[Space cat]

Are you sure it's fed from the tank and not teed off from the rising main that feeds the tank's ballcock?

They are claiming that you need at least 20m of pipe between the tank and the shower. Let's take that to mean 20m head of water - or is it 10m as you state in your next paragraph? If the shower really is tank fed then you won't even have 10m unless there are two more floors between you and the loft!

It's quite possible that the water pressure at the tee-off point is now lower in the morning than it used to be. There are many possible reasons for this, most of them outside of your control.

Here's another possible cause that I stumbled on by accident when my mother's electric shower refused to run hot. Not wanting to spray water all over the place I removed the shower head first - and got instant hot water! When I put the thing back on it went cold. She had replaced the original head with one of those multi-function ones and then turned it to a position that severely restricted the flow. Whatever kind of switch was in her shower, it responded to flow rate as well as pressure. Shower heads clog up with lime scale over time. When did you last clean yours out? As a simple test, remove the head and see whether you can get hot water from the tube end.