Electric showers – convince me.

We’re having a loft conversion done, including a shower room. Everyone (architect, builder, electrician, plumber) wants me to have an electric shower up there. I don’t like electric showers – in my experience they are functionally weedy and look a bit ‘buy-to-let’.

The builder reckons the wire will support a 9.x kW one, not a 10.x kW one. The electrician wasn’t there at this point to this is based on how thick the wire looks, not what it’s actually rated at.

So with a 9.x kW shower will I get a dribble of tepid water of a proper shower? Could it be delivered by something remotely attractive or a flimsy white plastic box on the wall?

I think they’ve won the argument (based on capacity of existing combi, water pressure, being able to have a shower if the boiler goes etc) so any pictures of attractive electric shower units much appreciated.

personnally I ignored all the nay-says and just bought a shower that runs off the combi boiler.
Replaced a weedy electric one, and when compared with a neighbours brand new electric shower (the best they could get with new wiring) the is no comparison, the electric one is sh!te.

based on capacity of existing combi, water pressure
What is you hot water pressure like upstairs, if it’s pretty reasonable I’d just do it!
being able to have a shower if the boiler goes etc
get some insurance!

I thought leccy showers need to run from a dedicated spur on the fusebox. Heat wise mine has the capability of melting my skin, pressure wise is another story, although I am on the 2nd floor and hooked up to the cold water riser my water pressure coming out of the shower is not the best – it works fine however I just wish there was a bit more ooomph.

I fitted a 10.5KW shower in my old house, but even that wasn’t a patch on the combi-fed one in my new place.

if you have good cold water pressure an electric made by a decent manufacturer @ 9kW will be fine. you do need good pressure though.

Our old 7kW electric shower is just fine, 9kW ones even better. If you’re worried about flow rates, get an auxiliary pump.

Having heard whinges from frieds not being able to use their boiler-fed showers until an hour after theyve got home from a holiday / ride, I’d go electric every time. And there’s no heat loss from the pipe run.

Yep, the dedicated spur is there. Looking at it we can tell which of the wires leaving the ‘fuse’ box in the direction of the attic is the shower wire ‘cos it’s thicker. The builder reckoned that while it was thicker, it wasn’t the thickest he’d seen, hence the guess that it would be OK for 9kW but nothing more.

Cold water pressure here is absolutely no problem so as long as the shower unit can impart enough heat to the water as it passes through it should be OK.

get an auxiliary pump.

If he has a combi boiler I would assume there is no cold water header tank. If that is the case then he couldn’t do that as it is technically illegal to pump directly from the mains.

Having heard whinges from frieds not being able to use their boiler-fed showers until an hour after theyve got home from a holiday / ride

Not a problem with a combi boiler, plus you get mains pressure. I’ve found that electric showers are limited by the capacity of the heater element not water pressure – notice how the pressure improves during the summer. That’s because the mains water temp is higher, so the electric element doesn’t need to work as hard

And I hate how electric showers struggle to even wash stray hairs from you. I hate them.

Another don’t get an electric shower vote here. Had them in every house thus far and they are always, without a shadow of doubt, pants. The house we are renting now has a hot water tank and truely epic showers – knocks the stuffing out of the highest rated I could find a few years back electric job I installed in my first house!

The place we are moving too, hopefully soon, is all combi boiler fed, so I am hoping for something decent… failing that I have seen where a hot water tank can be installed, and I can add solar heaters, back boiler stoves and god knows what else to make all the hot water in the world 😉

Oh aye… are you putting a toilet and the like in too…. if so DON’T FIT A SANIFLOW.

Sorry… just had to get that out my system 😉

In terms of functionality I’m going to speak to the electrician when he’s back tomorrow. If the thick wire isn’t thick enough for a 10.5kW one I’ll get him to bung a thicker one up there. I doubt it will add much to the cost in the grand scheme and I’ll appreciate it every morning when I’m in the shower.

So how about looks…
any pics of good looking electric showers? Nothing that reminds me of student housing or the portacabin shower block that serves as cyclist change facities at work.

And I hate how electric showers struggle to even wash stray hairs from you

you must have thick hairs, our electric shower is lovely. admitedly i did have doubts myself, i grew up with an ancient one that did indeed struggle to dribble, but we bought a fairly high wattage triton and its really nice. yes a pump fed jobbie from a hotwater tank would no doubt be better, but ours is easily up to the job and i don’t feel that its 2nd best.

Just ripped out an electric (9.5kw) and replaced with direct fed from combi

Joy oh joy oh joy..at last thick droplets of hot water not a thin dribble of lukewarmness.

Also, electric showers scale up and break and they look pants whereas we have a mint looking mixer tap and that is it.

Mira do some real decent electric showers – not that I’m biased in the slightest here…
Not the cheapest admittedly but then they won’t fall apart and generally be crap like a triton.
Mira Orbis is pretty nice i think, Piccy 9.8 model comes in black which looks even better. or azora or galena?

We do try to get the best performance out of them – shown by the fact we’ve got an electric shower on the market with an overhead and a handset. Mira Divisa

DavidB – most water using household products scale up to a certain degree, look at kettles, washing machines etc? Most of the newer mira electric versions run cold water through the shower after you press the off button to greatly reduce the effect of limescale (not for so long that if you’re stood under it you’ll get a shock though – enough to get the internal tank cooled properly).

We have one. It is only okay, not really very good. Nowhere near as good as previous ones that were cheap things attached to combi boilers.

The reason they are advising installing one could be because they a) cost twice as much and b)involve twice as much work to install , plumbing plus electrics rather than just plumbing (assuming you’re having a basin up there, so hot water is coming up anyway). More work for them and their mates.

Water pressure isn’t anything to do with how well an electric shower works, our water pressure is nice and high (bottom of hill, reservoir at the top of the hill). It is just how quick it heats up the water, as they only let water through when it is hot enough.

The most powerful ones (11kw+) are okay, but I don’t think our old house wiring is likely to take it!

The annoying thing is that it is a small house, one bathroom, with a good combi boiler, and fantastic water pressure in the bathroom, meaning that a clip on shower on the taps would be way more powerful than the current thing, let alone a proper thermostatic combi shower.

Joe

A mixer shower fed from a combi boiler is the best solution IMO, but you do have to have the water pressure, and I could be wrong on this, but not all combi boilers (especially) older ones can be used with a mixer shower.

7.5, 8, 9, 10, 11.5kW whatever, they’re all pants.

Have lived in 5 houses with them. Work OK in the summer, so long as nobody in the neighbourhood decides to use their taps. Complete and total junk in the autumn/winter/spring. The 9kW and above will make your electricity company and their shareholders very, very happy. Avoid at all costs.

Bet your architect hasn’t got one.

Like the above comments but each to their own thoughts mostly wrong. if i was you i would fit an electric one as a back up combis go wrong also so at least you can shower. yes electric showers give a poor flow compaired to a power shower or combi but they do the job they are designed for. as a rule of thumb any mixer fitted to a combi should be limited to 8 litres a min max flow rate so the boiler can modulate all year round. mira have more failures than triton plus their after sales leaves a little to be desired. if you live in a hard water area regardless of which ever shower you buy your combi is going to scale up
Water pressure is very important with electric showers a 9kw will need 1bar flowing and 9litres a min a 10kw will need 1.5bar flowing with 11 litre a min static water pressure readings are not important but should not exceed 10bar

We had our bathroom done last year and, like yourself, wanted a posh one but couldn’t without considerable plumbing upheaval.

We got this one from these people

and it’s absolutely fine, nice and hot, more than adequately powerful.

DONT DO IT. I got one put in our new en-suite we got as a result of an extension, nice posh shower cubicle big enough for two 😉 and a 9 or 10 kw shower, as recommended by my best mountain biking mate who was the sparky on the job . I now shower everyday in the main bathroom which has a mains fed shower. the electric thing is a major disappointment and I’d get it taken out if it didnt mean taking all the tiling off the walls and floor to get a hot water feed to it.

Like the above comments but each to their own thoughts mostly wrong. if i was you i would fit an electric one as a back up combis go wrong also so at least you can shower. yes electric showers give a poor flow compaired to a power shower or combi but they do the job they are designed for.

Right, so even someone who installs showers for a living says that they don’t give as good flow as a combi, and the only reason you can suggest for having it is so that you can have a hot shower if the boiler breaks down. Personally, I’d rather have a good shower when the boiler is working, than a rubbish shower that still works without the boiler.

Joe

Get a Mira Advance 9.0Kw they have a good flow rate.
Let me know if you need one as i can usually get a good price on them.

😀

Dont do it I have one and if someone in the next county flushes the bog the water pressure drop cuts the power and I get a nice refreshing blast of cold water. I think I would only have one if we had one of those New York style water towers on the roof.

Just in the process of this myself.

I want to get soaked under a shower, not lightly misted. I have never found an electric one that delivers enough water.

I’m getting mains.

they’re not a patch on combi fed ones, agreed, but they are cheap and easy to stick in. only one water pipe required. I’d never go back but I do believe they have their place.

Well the shower is now in and working. We went electric in the end, a Mira Galena. It gives a good shower and we're happy with it – looks good and gives plenty of hot water with no discernable temp variation regardless of what's happening in the rest of the house with taps, yoilets and washing machines. I guess analytically it's actually delivering less water flow than the combi driven one in the other bathroom but I think the shower head makes the most of it.

I might swap the shower heads over just to see what effect it has.

I hate my combi-driven shower, it's either so hot it's mental, or I turn down the hot and up the cold and the boiler turns off as the max outlet temp has been reached, then turns back on after some hysteresis – its a constantly fluctuating pain in the bum.

But then I hate hot showers, nothing worse than a prickly hot jetting. Never have probelms with electric showers until they become old and limescale filled and you practically have to turn the flow off to get warm water.

If its not the main shower I don't see a problem.

Also if your boiler breaks down Friday in the middle of winter and they don't have the parts til Monday (as what happened to me) you'll appreciate the shower.

don't get an electric one if you have the option, you'll only regret it. just taken leccy one out of GF's bathroom and put in a new bathroom suite with a shower run straight off the combi boiler, like the rest of the hot water in the house. combi boilers give hto water within seconds. WHAT a revelation. she was thinking of sticking with the electric, but having showered in mine (combi fed) i started to convince her otherwise. now she has nice powerful showers, and cant believe she went years with an electric! i don't even think they have a place in rented accomodation – if it came to two houses, one with and one without electric shower, the non-electric would get it for me!

If you already have a combi boiler, it's worth it IMO.

Though for mega-showerness, my parents have a cylinder-fed shower, but there's a wopping pump between the cylinder and shower! now that's a shower!

coffeeking – do you have an old boiler?

I should say, my comments ref combi boilers prob only apply to reltively modern ones- one i used about 10 years ago was poop.

went from a rubbish electric to a nice 3 bar pump

now that's a shower!

Until you run out of hot water! I much prefer the combi alternative simply because you get a powerful enough shower which never ends…

Benefit of cylinder feed is that its unaffected by someone flushing the toilet or running the washing machine.

yes and yet to run out of water as I have anice big cyclinder

If you're worried about flow rates, get an auxiliary pump.

the flow rate is controlled by the ability of the heater to heat the water, and at any given temperature, all 9kW showers (or whatever) will give the same (dribbly) flow rate.

FYI, my gas multipoint driven shower uses 37kW. It's brilliant 🙂 Note though that electric showers are much more energy efficient, and not nice enough to encourage you to stay under them any longer than is needed to get clean…

Benefit of cylinder feed is that its unaffected by someone flushing the toilet or running the washing machine.

Agreed – that is a drawback of a combi-fed shower.

the pathetic sum:

9kw = 9000 Joules/sec = 2142 calories/sec (that's just 2 food calories)
so if the inlet is at 15C and the outlet 40C
that's 2142/25 = 86 ml hot water per second 🙁

in winter it will be worse as the supply temperature falls

Yep, I measured a few (with a bucket and a watch!) before fitting the pump on my shower.
I thought at the time that about 8…9 litres/minute was adequate. Any more is pretty wasteful, as are many folk's over-pumped showers out there which often dump 15 litres/minute or even more.