Should I Change To An Electric Shower?

Associate

Hi all,

We've currently got a normal Tap & Mixer Shower attached to the Bath in our family home. We were thinking about buying a new Shower unit to replace the current one as it is quite old.................you know the basic Tap & Mixer Shower you can get from places like Argos.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8328715/Trail/searchtext%3ESHOWER+TAP.htm

However, we are contemplating getting an Electric Shower and installing it on the bath, as the hot water availability will be more constant (I have a large family).

For those of you who are familiar with Electric Showers:

1) Does it consume much Electricity ie after switching to this is the Electricity Bill likely to increase distinctly?

2) Would you recommend I go for an Electric Shower or stick to the type I already have?

Thank you.

Regards,

Jay

Steve_xx

You dont say whether your current mixer tap arrangement is fed from gas or electric heated water.

If it is fed from gas heated water then that will probably be the cheapest method.

However, if its fed from an electrically heated cylinder then you will find it cheaper to have an electric shower since the electric shower will only need to heat the amount of water that you use. You wont need to store hot water in the cyclinder tank.

As a rule, electric showers run at between 8 and 10 kilowatts. To give you an idea of how much power is consumed, if you imagine a shower running at 10 kilowatts being turned on for 1 hour it would be like having ten 1 bar electric fires switched on simultaneously for an hour. That's expensive, but of course you don't have the shower turned on for an hour, but you may do cumulatively in any one day if there are a lot of you in the house I guess.

ukjoel

Jay - you dont say what boiler you have and this is critical to answer the question.

Is it a combi boiler or do you still have a water tank in loft?

If you have a water tank I would probably say electric cheaper and more reliable.
If you have a combi boiler would probably stick to what you have.

jenny-wren

We have an electric shower and I wouldn't be without it. We also have an old mixer tap shower thingy and the power / pressure difference is really noticeable. OK the electric shower is 8.5KW. If you compare it to other appliances and how these affect your electricity consumption when used regularly (1600W hairdryer for example) you should be able to estimate how if will affect your bills. I live in Northern Ireland where we only have one electricity supplier so our bills are probably higher than mainland UK. We both use the shower every morning, the computer and TV are rarely off during evenings and weekends and our electricity DD is £47 a month.

The electric shower is much quicker that the old one, the temperature is consistent, you don't get frozen when someone turns on the hot tap in the kitchen, and in summer we don't have to have the oil central heating on to have a hot shower (we have an old single loop system where if the heating isn't on the water isn't heated).

What we save in heating oil and the convenience of an instant piping hot shower outweighs any increase in the electricity costs.

Associate

Sorry:

* The mixer tap is fed from Gas heated water

* We don't have a combi boiler, just a normal one that requires water tank

* 6 Adults in the house


I've read the replies so far, thank you for that, taking the above into account and in simple terms, would you say Electric Shower would be more convenient and cheaper?

Thanks!

Jay

Steve_xx

Electric may be better as long as you don't also heat water by gas to be stored in the cylinder, unused.

Your electric bill will rise and the gas bill will drop. It's hard to say whether it will be cheaper to use electric since I don't know what your unit charges are and it also depends on how long each of you stays in the shower.

You could retain both options.

Associate

Thank you.

If I do decide to purchase an Electric Shower, any particular makes I should be going for and what is the minimum I should be looking to spend for a decent one?

Jay

Steve_xx

Some say Mira are good. I really wouldn't know which to choose. I've fitted a few showers in my time from Triton to Gainborough. They've all been ok. I'm sure that some people will have preferences on brands, but I'm not swayed one way or the other thus far.

I recently fitted a Triton shower for a friend. she bought it from Homebase and it cost £63 and it was 8.5kwatts. It was to replace one similar that was about 3 years old and had failed.

I wouldn't go for less than 8.5kw because the water probably wont get hot enough during the winter months. Anything from 8.5 to 10.5 will be ok. Bearing in mind that the higher the kilowatt output is, the more expensive it is to run.

If you get it fitted it will need its own heavy duty cabling and separate fuse. It will also need a pull-cord isolator switch in the bathroom. They are plumbed directly into the cold water supply.

usignuolo

Well I have just had a thermostatic shower installed - fixed head rain cloud and separate hand unit and a bar with temperature on one side and pressure on the other and it is FANTASTIC. Much better than my old electric one. I have a combi boiler.

Zanzibar

Ive fitted a few showers and Id say just avoid the cheapest Tritons and B&Q models. There was a Which review showers a couple of years ago and the Mira was the best.

The best have temperature stability control which compensates for any pressure fluctuations - the cheapest ones don't have this. Also the higher power the faster the flow rate can be for a given temperature - i.e. you don't have to set it at a dribble rate if you want a proper hot shower, so get the 9.8Kw or higher models.

Its about £250 for the Mira Advance ATL 9.8KW which I use - its been worth the extra ££ over the previous Heatra Saida (nice quality shower, just underpowered at 8KW) and the preceding Triton - hard to use controls and parts needed replacing.

ic

If you get an electric, get a high wattage model - 10KW (with the appropriate cabling!). My house was fitted with an 8.5KW shower, despite having a large combi boiler. I replaced the taps with a shower mixer, and now have fantastic high pressure hot showers with water from the boiler. The electric was paltry by comparison.

Problem with electric, is that to make the shower hotter, it simply restricts the flow so that it spends longer inside the unit warming up. So in winter when you want the hot shower, you just get a hot dribble. The more KW, the less it'll need to be turned down as it can run hotter.