Plumbering help – Electric Shower Low Pressure fault

We’ve got a Triton Entice 10.5kW shower.
last yr, it wouldn’t run due to a ‘low pressure fault’ which turned out to be that numbnuts here had the outside tap on at the same time (topping the pond up) and once this was turned off the shower worked fine.

Yesterday morning I was just about to turn the shower off and it turned itself off with the low pressure warning light on.
I tried to restart it several times, but I wasn’t having any of it.

My other half had the same problem about an hour later when she tried to use it; it ran for several minutes before turning off.

Did the same thing this morning too….

I am 99% sure it’s mains feed, rather than tank fed, as there’s no way there’d be enough head for the min. pressure requirement, but I checked the tank anyway and it was full with decent flow when I shoved the ballcock down. So, it’s not like it’s running the tank dry.

I don’t think it’s actually a pressure issue, as it starts up OK, but then stops after several minutes (there is no other water use during this time, such as dishwasher/washing machine); I wonder if there is a relay overheating or something else like a faulty switch. I haver seen from forums that certain Triton showers have a fault with a microswitch that trips the low-pressure fault.

Any ideas. I could do without the expense of a new shower, seeing as we are getting hitched this yr and all the money for venue/dresses/cake etc. is starting to be asked for…

If I do have to replace it, I was gonna go for a Mira shower as they seem to have a better reputation for longevity over Triton, but I guess it would be easier to re-install the exact model of shower??
How ‘plug & play’ are the multi-fit showers?
I hope we have an isolation tap for the shower!

Ta, in advance….

If the pipe inlets are in roughly the same place, then swapping one shower for another is pretty straight forward. They all use push fit connectors, so no soldering required.

There’s sometimes a filter on the inlet to the shower, I’d check that first.

Yeah, cheers dibbs. I was going to take the inlet filter out and see if that is clogged up & also take the showerhead off & run it with just the hose to see if the head is blocked (not that I think that should affect it, but might as well rule out the obvious ones).

Thing is, i wouldn’t expect it to start if it’s the inlet filter. But, it runs for several mins, then stops…..

What dibbs said. Also check it without handset on end of hose as either scaled handset or collapsed hose.

If the pressure to the shower is actually ok, it sounds like it could be one of the the heating elements (or an electrical connection to it) that has gone.
I think there are 3 and they are replaceable as a set for around £50-£60 ?

If you good with DIY type stuff you should be able to do it yourself.

Ta Bear. Will try this evening (assuming I can find the isolator tap for the shower to get the filter off….

I don’t have any way of checking the pressure (could buy a gauge from Screwfix, I s’pose) but the shower has worked fine up until now so I have no reason to think that the pressure is no good. I haven’t seen any water company vans in the local area digging up the road, either.

nealglover – if a heating element has gone, would I not notice this by a colder shower when it is running? The force of the shower seems to be unaffected & the dial is set to the same position & gives the same temperature as normal. Losing 1/3 heating power would be noticeable wouldn’t it?
Unless it’s an intermittent fault with the element, I guess?
Does a faulty element normally cause it to shut-off though with a ‘low pressure’ warning light?

Normally electric showers vary the flow rate to control temperature, so if the water is too cold to be heated to the target temp by the element at full flow, it will throttle down the flow rate to try and hit the target temp.

Yeah, footflaps. That’s all ours does.
Effectively the temperatute gauge is actually a flow controller, so in the winter to get to the same temperature shower you get less flow out of it as the inlet water temp is lower.

But, I don’t think ours is sophisticated enough to control to a target temperature (I could very well be wrong though).

If it is trying to do this, why doesn’t this happen from (almost) the start? The shower runs for several mins at a steady rate & temperature before stopping. The rate & temp seems to be the same as before this issue started, but it just stops all of a sudden. It then won’t re-start for a while (not sure how long).
Perhaps the sudden stop causes an over-temp in the water that remains in the shower, as the flow stops but the elements still have residual heat to give up. Maybe this is a delayed restart thing to avoid scalding water shooting out of the showerhead?

Stupid domestic stuff! There’s always something needs doing (bit like my bikes, to be honest)….

Does a faulty element normally cause it to shut-off though with a ‘low pressure’ warning light?

I placed a service call for a customer with the same fault you describe, and that was the diagnosis they gave.

I ordered the parts and fitted them and it worked fine afterwards.

To be fair electric shower internals are not my area of expertise, hence the service call rather than diagnosing myself, but it seemed to solve the problem once it was fitted (full set of 3 elements)

cheers nealglover……

will look into that, then, once I’ve tried the filter & showerhead….

Having pulled a few apart, they’re fairly modular inside, you can just unplug Bit A, swap it out and plug the new bit back in.

Triton Entice parts diagram.

solenoid has failed going open circuit when it gets hot.it is an easy part to replace if you know what you are doing if not best left to someone who does as the last thing you want is an electric shock. work on these things alday long

Try these guys http://www.showerdoc.com/

I pinged them a question about my duff shower and got an email back pronto , ordered up the part from them fitted it and alls good

Wow, thanks all for your help!

My OH has a background in electronics and apparently had a look at it earlier. She thought it could be the solenoid too based on what she saw, as you say showerman….

We’ve bought an ‘over the tap’ thing until we can get a proper look at it.

Quick update for those who gave advice & anyone who finds this thread via a search…

Following showerman’s advice (thanks for the e-mail too) I bought a solenoid from eBay for about £11 including postage.

Turned off the ‘leccy and it took a bit of jiggling about and cutting some plastic out of the shower box, but I managed to swap the solenoid fairly easily…

Two showers with it now & it is working well again. Even seems a bit more powerful although not sure if that’s because we’ve been using an ‘over the tap’ shower in the meantime that is really weak.