Electric shower or not

whitelightrider

Hey folks,

Plumber is due to start on the house next week and Im looking for advice.
We're putting in a shower cabin in the master en suite, nothing in the main bathroom and we were thinking of putting in a power shower in the spare en suite. But Im just thinking about hot water. Would we be better putting in an electric shower into the spare en suite to ensure there is constant hot water to one of the showers?

smashey

Moved to DIY. You'll get a better response there.

Minder

I have two bathrooms and a shower all running from a combi boiler and it is a nightmare. I have no hot water storage and no cold water storage - so all my taps are at mains pressure. When the shower is running, it is affected by a drop in pressure if someone turns on a cold tap or flushes a toilet. Also when the boiler was playing up, we had no alternative showering facility. I am now looking at changing the shower room to an electric shower.

So yes, I would recommend plumbing in at least one mains fed electric shower - I have always found AquaLisa to be very reliable.

whitelightrider

We're putting in a pressurised system so Im not too bothered about any drops in pressure to the shower units. My biggest concern is to have constant hot water. Looks like I might have to install an electric shower, which I really didnt want to do.

Slig

By electric showers I assume you are referring to pumped electric showers as opposed to power showers. If there is poor water pressure then these dont work and it is very difficult to regulate the temperature on them. I'd put a timer on your immersion and a standard shower head, use the immersion during the summer to heat the water and CH system during the winter.

MickLimk

As to the shower question, it really depends on occupancy levels (current and projected!) and water usage patterns.

From your previous posts, I think you are going with a 300l cylinder, gas boiler combined with solar water heating?

When & how often do you see yourself in the situation whereby you don't have any hot water and can't wait the short time it would take to heat enough for a shower?

How often do you think the spare en-suite would be used? If only very rarely, then it probably doesn't matter too much if you put in an electric shower. If it might be used regularly now or in the future, then it could be a case that you're paying money to electrically heat water for a shower when you may have 200-300 litres of cheap hot water sitting in a tank just waiting to be used...

Solar water heating could potentially provide you with hot water for most of the summer when your central heating is off. For the rest of the year, when your central heating is on, the solar panels would contribute to heating your water so the c/h doesn't have as much work to do.

If you install a decent cylinder that's sized correctly and insulated properly, you shouldn't have any great heat loss from it. Once your system is installed and controlled right, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a reliable source of hot water.

Just my 2c...

mct1

We had electric showers in our own bedroom and spare bedroom ensuites - installed when we built our extension ten years ago. After a couple of years we put a power shower in the main bedroom ensuite, but we actually kept the electric one there too. It might sound strange but it seems to work having both. The electric is just a back-up and is hardly ever used but it's nice to know it's there. When we had solar panels installed two years ago, we added a gravity (non-power) shower to the spare room, rather than create a mess from removing the electric one.

You might consider putting both in the largest of your ensuites. (Just to clarify, the two shower fittings are on the same wall in one cubicle).

ART6

Personally I'd go for electric showers every time, and have done so for years ever since I inherited a shower that worked off the hot water cyclinder in a house we bought. The latter one was a continuing pain in the butt since her ladyship insisted in starting things like the washing machine just as I had entered the shower. Ok, the electric lads are probably bad for your personal carbon footprint and you would be a major contributor to global warming, but at least you'd be clean when you wanted to be:D

landydef

if your putting in a pressurised cylinder you would be mad to put in a triton in my opinion, firstly the pressure from the triton would be nowhere near the pumped pressure,the noise in the shower would be a lot louder from the triton, it wouldnt look as nice as a simple shower valve,if you set either your immersion timer or you hot water circuit to come on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening the cost of heating this water would still be less then two or three 10 kilowatt triton showers

lanod2407

I have both installed.
The pumped shower is great - Mira - with plenty of power, but when it comes to the hot water - as the ad says - when it's gone, it's gone!

The electric shower is ok - Triton - lacks power but is reliable for a hot shower at all times. I've heard that the Mira is a much better unit. Regarding power consumption - the electric shower is really high. I've an electricity usage monitor installed (the OWL) and the electric shower is a beast for consumption.

I'd have an electric shower installed, but maybe not as a main unit.

Also consider the next few years and what you'll require - I now have 4 kids from 17 to 11, sport-mad - so demand is high!