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- 27 Jan 2008
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I had both, not at same time, in my mothers wet room, power shower was first, the big problem is to plum in a way so if you loose the water supply or it is less than demand it can not empty the tank below the level of any immersion heater, never had a problem the way I plumbed it in, but immersion not used much anyway. The unit looked like a normal electric shower, except two feed pipes, hot and cold, however then the RCD tripped with the shower down stairs, we often did not notice it had tripped, there was enough pressure without the motor running, had it been upstairs with header tank in airing cupboard, then there may have been a problem.
The header tank started to leak, was installed in 1954, and dad's C Plan central heating was not the best, the Aga was long gone, so did not need the header tank and cistern, so went to a combi boiler, it was a government assisted plan, and the firm it seemed did little else but fit new economic central heating systems, so old 32 mm pipe work was ripped out, and all new pipes and radiators fitted, as well as the combi boiler. On inspection I found the old power shower had been left in, this was illegal as it could suck water into the system, so they were called back to change it, and a thermostatic controller replaced the power shower.
The only problem was it takes time for the boiler to fire up to supply the hot water, so there is a small reservoir of hot water in the boiler, great for the sink, but for the shower this reservoir would run out before the boiler was producing hot water, so shower of course starts cold, then goes hot, but then would go cold again and finally hot and stay hot as the reservoir emptied. You could select eco mode on boiler which would stop this, however than a delay getting hot water to the sink.
It was not a case of the power shower being better than the simple thermostatic mixer tap, it was down to the legalities of using a power shower, both were good.
You can get power showers with the pump remote to the shower controls, and with a reservoir of hot water you can get showers with side jets,
these will not work with a combi boiler it can't deliver enough hot water, although since you are worried about running out of hot water maybe not best option for you, but some thing I fancy, and possible here as shower is down stairs so loads of pressure without a pump.But the power shower is really for when the header tank is too low to get enough pressure without it.
