Redring Powerstream

[DJM]

Following on from my previous threads i have now traced out the cooker and shower cables. The cooker is on 10mm2 cable with 45A fuse, but worse is the shower which is on 6mm2 cable and 45A fuse.

The unit is a Redring powerstream RP1 9.5KW which I think should be on 10mm2 cable. The curent cable is 6mm2 and has been since it was put in by the previous owners professional installers at least 10 years ago.

I have turned teh unit off and removed teh fuse for safety, but how dangerous has it been whilst we were using it?

 

[Niloc]

Depends on how long the cable run is from the consumer unit, and where it is in the house, i.e. clipped to the surface, or under the floorboards, or buried in loft insulation. The cable will get hot if the shower is left running for a period of time and could present a fire risk.

 

[DJM]

Unit is in a loft conversion so run must be between 7-10 metres and is either clipped on joists or free in stud wall cavity. No insulation, but about 0.5metre length bundled near to CU. Shower not run for any real length of time as only one person (our son) uses it.

 

[DJM]

Can I safely use it at all or should I leave it disconnected

 

[Niloc]

You probably won't notice any problems if the shower, in normal use, is run for 5-10 mins. But if your son were to accidently leave the shower running for any reason you could be in trouble.
I would recommend that you get the cable upgraded, 10mm should do it. This would also ensure that the fuse blows in the correct time should the shower develop a fault.

 

[securespark]

It would do that with the existing cable if the EFLI was adequate?

 

[DJM]

Thanks for the replies.

I have now found the powerstream is leaking so it wont get used again. Guess I should bite the bullet and upgrade when I buy the replacement unit.

I presume fitting it is notifiable as it is in an en-suite and therefore any sparks will inevitably require the upgrade before fitting and certifying anyway.

Perhaps I should uprate to 16mm2 in case at a later date I want to fit a larger powerstream.

 

[DJM]

This is getting silly, Part P must really be creating work. I have now called 5 niceic electricians to carry out the simplest job of replacing a 6mm2 cable with a 16mm2, connect to new powerstream, check and certify and they are all too busy to even quote.

If I move the unit outside the bathroom does it still count as noftifiable?

Guess I'll keep calling.

 

[amtrakuk]

I've been looking for electric heated hot water systems to replace my worn out gas combi boiler (also I think within 5 years the price of gas will be prohibitively expensive including depreciation and servicing charges). I drew the shot list to 2 solutions, a Santon Premier Plus pressurised 3 Kw cylinder and a 12 KW Powerstream.

As I live on my own I liked the idea of the Powerstream as it switches off when not in use but I like the idea of 100 litres of mains pressure hot water from the Santon after a couple of hours of heating.

A couple of days ago the plumber disconnected my boilers plumbing and plumbed in the Powerstream in the cupboard below it.

The electrician left earlier this afternoon after installing one hell of a bit of cable! I popped down the shop and got a bottle of wine in to celebrate and thought id try it out.

Baring in mind its only 4 degrees outside and I've just gone through a couple of cold snaps I was excited to see how the Powerstream performs.

I ran upstairs to the bathroom and turned on the hot tap and waited.. And waited and waited... Eventually the water started to warm, after a couple of minutes of it getting warm I turned down the tap until it was the temp I felt was comfortable. Unfortunately I recon I was down to 4 litres a minute, this meant it was going to take a good 20 minutes to fill my bath so I tried the shower.

I have a shower head with a jet or a spray setting, usually I have it on half and half so I get max flow. After trying to reduce the flow I ended up with it on the spray only. This gave a comfortable shower, turning down the flow using the tap further increased the water temperature.

I am planning on going to get a shower head with a low flow rate tomorrow from B&Q. If I turned down the flow to much the plunger on the mixer tap drops and comes out the main bath spout. Im also going to turn down the service valves on the taps.

Conclusion, well not the flow rate I was expecting and not as good as the old boiler there again it is only 12 Kw not 40 Kw of the gas boiler. Also the Powerstream isn't really designed for a bath or a shower with a high flow rate.

Will I live with it or pay the plumber to get the Santon plumbed in? Early days yet. I will give it a week and see if im frustrated enough to pay the plumber to install the Santon.

 

[Steve]

amtrak, what are you doing for room heat now?

I cant help but think you didn't have all the options before you when you made the decision to switch to electric. Electricity is much more expensive per kw and more wasteful in the distribution.

Have you heard of heat pumps? These extract heat from the ground, or from the air outside and work well down to about -10 (as long as you keep snow away from the coils if its an air source pump). They are incredibly efficient, you're normally looking at a 400% efficiency with ground source. This means you'd need a 4kw compressor to provide 16kw of heat. Oh, and they can cool too (the technology is based on air conditioners so is tried and tested).

 

[amtrakuk]

Hi steve.

I'm using Bionaire 3KW heaters, one in the kitchen and one in the front room. I've got cheap 20.00 convector thermostat heaters to heat the bedrooms as and when I need as I like a cool bedroom to sleep in.

I prefer these as I can use the remote pod to switch them on when I come in, it only takes about half an hour to raise the front room to 20 degrees then it switches off until the temp falls then it turns on for a few minutes to bring the room back upto temp.

I initally took meter readings for the last couple of months and its working out about the same if not a little more than I was paying for combined gas, servicing and electric (90.00/month). At the beginning of January and giving a meter reading over the phone for November and December my total electricity bill was just over 180.00. Id think it would be a different story if the house was populated all day, every day.

I looked at heat pumps briefly but having a very small front garden I don't have the space also the finances to install it. Thinking on it if the heat pump goes wrong then I would suspect it will be costly to repair. Looking at the size of the equipment I don't think I'd a) have space for it b) living in Armley I suspect it wont take too long before a yob will come and vandalise it.

I'm just going to pickup a couple of friends to come over and test as last night whilst on the phone they filled a 1 litre jug using their 8Kw shower taking 10 seconds - at the temp they normally shower in. They found it hard to believe that Im not getting the same or better performance out of a 12Kw Powerstream. The more I think on it the more I think it is the heat loss in the pipes. Perhapse I should be thinking of the Santon Water cylinder. Is there a reasonable priced plumber in Leeds who wants to install it, The plumber charged me 300.00 to isolate the boiler pipework and install the Powerstream... Ive got the expansion vessel

Will keep you informed. Andy

 

[Steve]

As with gas boilers, you can normally get a maintenance contract from the people who fit a heat pump, which generally covers repairs and a yearly service, since they are expensive to repair.

 

[amtrakuk]

Yeah thats what I was trying to avoid. Call me a bit of a thrift but under BG homecare I was paying 20.00 a month for about 3 years and a gas man arriving once a year taking off the cover and poking about, 10 mins later he left. 200 + GBP seems quite a lot for that. when the boiler finally started showing signs of packing in he came round and said it was my head exchange - something they didn't cover. But they could fit a new boiler for me for 4000.00. I got a range of quotes from various installers from 2.5k to BGs 4k. Then I did the sums of depreciation, serviing and 40.00 a month for gas (lately gone upto 50.00). It works out at about 80-85.00 a month to run the boiler then ad my 40.00 electric bill on top of that.

Hense the reason for going electric.

 

[Steve]

We have homecare, its proved itself to us several times in the past. Yearly inspection, and most faults fixed. One fault took several visits to diagnose, and this would have cost us a fortune without cover!!!

 

[amtrakuk]

All seems to be going well with the electric project. Though I have changed the Bionaire heaters for regular wall mountable convection heaters from Argos. I got through about 4 of the bionaire convectors all of them each exibiting the same problem of "Lights are on but no bodies home". At least the replacements have only got a mechanical thermostat and are alot quieter!

The powerstream is installed and working ok but not providing the flow/temp I was expecting even now the warm weather is here, so I am thinking of getting an unvented heater installed.

My Average electric bull was about 100-120/month from November until March - 600.00 and now the heating is off dropped to about 50 a month so looking good