I am renting a place with extremely old plumbing; one of the many things that doesn’t work is the shower. This is an old Mira, which, according to Mira ceased production in about 1979.
The property owner has agreed to pay me to replace the shower and will provide a tiler – as I am no good at stuff like that. The shower is in a shower room with the pipe work buried in a solid wall. The property is a converted cow shed and so is of single story construction.
The mains water pressure is extremely good, but at the moment, all but the kitchen sink cold tap is on gravity supplies.
To avoid any electrical work (and expense) I bought a new Trevi Boost exposed shower, thinking that it would be simplicity itself to convert the cold feed to mains pressure as the shower requires.
Not having fitted one of these units before, I was surprised to see that it required a 22mm hot feed. This will be difficult to provide without removing the shower tray and the majority of tiles below the existing Mira.
Looking at the pipe work, the hot feed is in 22mm until the last 1-1.5M, when it drops down to 15mm.
The performance of the existing shower is poor as I only have a small positive head, but it does work after a fashion – the only reason for this work is that the thermostatic unit has failed.
Reading the instructions it appears that the reason for the 22mm requirement is that a greater volume of hot is required since the water will always be mixed with cold due to the venturi principle of operation.
Given the circumstances that I have described, does anyone know how the shower is likely to perform? I know that I can always increase the HW temperature to compensate but I would like both decent temperatures and flow rates. I know that I could always install it and check and if necessary convert to 22mm but I am reluctant to do this, as the extra work would be considerable. As I got the Trevi at a good price (£130) I can always sell it on as brand new and get a more suitable unit.
I have not called Trevi yet as I am pretty sure that they are going to say “22mm, 22mm, 22mm, 22mm etc” so I would be interested in anyone’s ‘real world’ experience or alternative suggestions.
Apologies for the long post!
The property owner has agreed to pay me to replace the shower and will provide a tiler – as I am no good at stuff like that. The shower is in a shower room with the pipe work buried in a solid wall. The property is a converted cow shed and so is of single story construction.
The mains water pressure is extremely good, but at the moment, all but the kitchen sink cold tap is on gravity supplies.
To avoid any electrical work (and expense) I bought a new Trevi Boost exposed shower, thinking that it would be simplicity itself to convert the cold feed to mains pressure as the shower requires.
Not having fitted one of these units before, I was surprised to see that it required a 22mm hot feed. This will be difficult to provide without removing the shower tray and the majority of tiles below the existing Mira.
Looking at the pipe work, the hot feed is in 22mm until the last 1-1.5M, when it drops down to 15mm.
The performance of the existing shower is poor as I only have a small positive head, but it does work after a fashion – the only reason for this work is that the thermostatic unit has failed.
Reading the instructions it appears that the reason for the 22mm requirement is that a greater volume of hot is required since the water will always be mixed with cold due to the venturi principle of operation.
Given the circumstances that I have described, does anyone know how the shower is likely to perform? I know that I can always increase the HW temperature to compensate but I would like both decent temperatures and flow rates. I know that I could always install it and check and if necessary convert to 22mm but I am reluctant to do this, as the extra work would be considerable. As I got the Trevi at a good price (£130) I can always sell it on as brand new and get a more suitable unit.
I have not called Trevi yet as I am pretty sure that they are going to say “22mm, 22mm, 22mm, 22mm etc” so I would be interested in anyone’s ‘real world’ experience or alternative suggestions.
Apologies for the long post!
