Electric Shower (Switch) Broken

trotter_inc

Hi guys,

I hope you can help me out a little here....

We have an electric shower at home, like most electric showers we have a switch outside the bathroom which we must switch on before the shower will work. The switch has one of those red lights which illuminates when it is switched on. Over the weekend I went to switch it on and the red light never came on and the electric shower will now not work.

I checked the trip switch board and the switch for the shower never tripped. Our house is only 3 years old so the electrics would be modern enough.

I took off the cover of the switch outside the bathroom to see if there was a loose wire or something simple like that but everything looked intact and tight. I thought there might be a fuse gone in the switch but there was no casing to hold a fuse (excuse my ignorance on this but maybe it's not supposed to have a fuse!)

Before I call out on electrician, could there be any other possible simple cause for the problem?

Appreciate any pointers on this...

themullet

Well it is possible that the switch could be faulty. If you want to eliminate this you could try the following.

1. Flick off the switch on the fuse board for the shower. Once this is off the shower circuit is no isolated and should be safe to work on.

2. Open up the shower switch (the one with the little red light on it). Make a note of the connections.

3. Unscrew all wires from the switch.

4. Connect the two brown wires together.

5. Connect the two blue wires together.

6. Flick on the Shower switch at the fuse board.

7. Turn on the shower.


If the shower works then the switch is faulty and you can simply replace it yourself.

trotter_inc

themullet wrote: »

4. Connect the two brown wires together.

5. Connect the two blue wires together.

Sounds good, thanks mullet. Just to be clear on the above, you mean simply wrap the ends of each around each other, right? So that the switch is bypassed effectively? Should I do the same with the earth?

I took the casing off the switch last night alright and seen both sets of the brown and blue wires.

trotter_inc

trotter_inc wrote: »

Should I do the same with the earth?

Sorry, I meant the neutral (yellow/green) here....

themullet

Yeah, that's right. Once you connect them together (the 2 brown say) just wrap them in a bit of insulating tape, so that they wont touch off the two blue when the power is back on. You can also wrap the 2 blue as well as a precaution. If there are two green wires there, you may connect them together also. Let me know how it goes

davelerave

anything to do with showers.i would advise get a sparkie from a safety point of view.he can test if neccessary.you might leave a time-bomb for yourself

trotter_inc

davelerave wrote: »

anything to do with showers.i would advise get a sparkie from a safety point of view.he can test if neccessary.you might leave a time-bomb for yourself

Understand your point, but I don't want to get a sparkie out without checking if it's something small which I can do myself.

Once the trip switch is off I should be Ok.

2011

Hold on a minute guys! The first thing to do is to establish what type of a shower it is. There is a chance that this is an instantenous type that is rated in the region of 9.5kW (such as a Triton T90). This would mean that the advice below is incorrect!!

3. Unscrew all wires from the switch.

4. Connect the two brown wires together.

5. Connect the two blue wires together.

OP what make of shower is it??? If as you say there is no fuse in the switch unit I would suspect that it is an instantenous type of shower. This type of shower is a large electrical load. It is common for this type to burn out cheaper switches.

Is the switch "clunky" to operate like a cooker switch???

Provide more details and we can help you out.

Once the trip switch is off I should be Ok.

I am not trying to be smart here, I love DIY myself. It is inportant to ensure that the correct MCB is switched off. Phase testers are banned from sites for a reason, they are not reliable. Professional electricians use expensive multimeters (such as FLUKE) etc to establish that the power is indeed off.
Mains voltage can kill!

trotter_inc

2011 wrote: »

OP what make of shower is it??? If as you say there is no fuse in the switch unit I would suspect that it is an instantenous type of shower. This type of shower is a large electrical load. It is common for this type to burn out cheaper switches.

Is the switch "clunky" to operate like a cooker switch???

Point taken fully. It is indeed a Triton, afraid I'll have to check the exact model when I get home.

Yes, the switch is clunky, exactly like a cooker switch.

2011

It is indeed a Triton, afraid I'll have to check the exact model when I get home.

Yes, the switch is clunky, exactly like a cooker switch.

OK this is what I thought.

What you appear to have here is a faulty isolation switch as I think you have worked out!

The replacement switch I would suggest would be an MK double pole switch that is rated at 45 amps. The chances are that this would be a far superior switch to the one you are replacing. It can also come with a neon indication lamp. Having said this, it is an expensive switch. Not only is this a high quality isolation switch, but it is far easier than most to connect. The cable passing through the switch should be quite large, with conductors that are nearly 3 times larger than that for socket circuits.



You should find that one 3 core cable (with live, neutral and earth) feeds the switch and a similar cable then comes from the switch to feed the load (your shower).

Here are a few important points:

1 Ensure that all connections are very tight!! Loose connections can cause a fire.

2 Do not operate the switch when the shower is running. This will reduce the life of the switch.

3 Make sure you know what you are doing!! If unsure get a sparks in. It will take him 5 minutes.

2011

On reflection perhaps the best piece of advice is on this thread is from davelerave:

anything to do with showers.i would advise get a sparkie from a safety point of view.he can test if neccessary.you might leave a time-bomb for yourself

trotter_inc

Ok guys, I didn't kill myself and I found the problem

As you pointed out it was the switch causing the problem, I bypassed it using the steps from themullet and the shower worked! I will replace it when I get a new one today. Thanks for the pointer on that fancy switch 2011, will check if the local DIY shop has one.

Thanks to you all for the great advice guys!

2011

I didn't kill myself and I found the problem

Great, Im glad to hear it!