Electric shower loses power when the neighbours turn on theirs

seamus

Really just an exploratory question;

We're in a block of four terraced houses. We have a pumped electric shower which as far as we know was there for a good while but shortly after moving in we just replaced it with a newer one.

Problem is that when we're using ours and the neighbour with the bathroom on the other side of the wall switches on theirs, ours loses power and the flow drops to a trickle.

House was built in the 80's, has a breaker panel rather than fuses (thank fnck), and there hasn't been any significant work done on it since - though the neighbour in question did get a large extension and decorating works done about 15 years ago.

I'm really just looking for pointers here; I would have thought the individual houses should be properly isolated that this shouldn't happen.

We're planning on getting substantial works done next year, so if this is something that needs a sparks to deal with, I'd like to get it sorted then. Or is it a supply issue that ESB networks needs to deal with?

Dardania

Does the water pressure drop, or does the temperature drop?

And is your current shower a pumped one (e.g. has a pump inside it)? And is it connected to your own tank?

seamus

Just the pressure drops, temp stays stable. It's a triton T90Z, which I think is pumped, though looking at the website it may not be.

Fed by our own tank from the attic, which isn't shared.

Cheers

2011

seamus wrote: »

Fed by our own tank from the attic, which isn't shared.

This and the fact that the issue only arises when your neighbor uses his shower points an insufficient capacity on the electrical to these homes. When the combined electrical load is too large (both showers on at the same time) this causes a volt drop. As power is a function of voltage the output of your shower reduces dramatically.

Dardania

Next step is here: https://www.esbnetworks.ie/existing-connection/voltage-issues

seamus

Cheers, much appreciated.