Electric shower - no water - worth repairing?

lilitu93

Our electric shower, a Triton T80im, stopped working. Electricity's going to it, since the low water pressure led is on, but no water is coming out.

According to http://www.showerdoc.co.uk/faq/electric.html, the problem could be the solenoid or the micro switch, but we have no way of testing that ourselves. That site says to use a multimeter to test the solenoid, but we don't have one.

Neither I nor my husband are particularly good at DIY, but he has managed to replace the pressure valve in the shower with no problems. The solenoid or micro switch looks more complicated, however, and I don't know if we could do it ourselves.

We've had lots of troubles with it off and on over the years, and we're trying to decide if it's worth getting repaired or just getting a new one. It's many years out of warranty at this point.

So should we get someone in to look at it or just get someone in to put in a new one? And is this repair easier than it sounds or looks? Thanks in advance.

jimbo_the_jetset

Trying to repair could be a bit like chasing your tail unless you get a definite diagnosis, i.e. you could shell out money on a part only to find that is not the problem. Do you know how much the solenoid or micro switch cost?

If > £50 could be worth considering a new shower unit

macman

You can get a basic multimeter for less than a tenner. A worthwhile investment as it will come in handy for many other jobs. If you can change a pressure valve then you can probably change the other parts.
However if you're not going to fix it yourself, then the cost of the parts and getting someone in will probably be 60% of the cost of fitting a new one.

lilitu93

jimbo_the_jetset wrote: »

Trying to repair could be a bit like chasing your tail unless you get a definite diagnosis, i.e. you could shell out money on a part only to find that is not the problem. Do you know how much the solenoid or micro switch cost?

If > £50 could be worth considering a new shower unit

The solenoid is a little over £25 and the micro switch is around £10. But I'd need a multimeter to find out if it is the solenoid (and I don't know how to test for a micro switch, but that site I linked says they can tell yo how to do that kind of thing). Plus you need the multimeter to be able to test it.

So it's between £20-35 minimum for parts, including the multimeter.

The shower is maybe 7 years old now, so I'm also worried that this won't be the last thing to break on it. I'm thinking of getting a Mira if we replace it, since we've had troubles with this Triton (and the one we replaced), but I want to put it off as long as possible due to cost.

macman

Then at 7 years old I would change it now, you're probably only looking at an additional £50-ish. Bear in mind that if you put in a higher rated shower you may need to upgrade the cable, eg 6m to 10mm, and that will be an additional cost.

jimbo_the_jetset

And be aware Mira plumbing & electric locations are slightly different to Triton. So if your elec and water pipe come out the wall in a certain place best to check first. If you go on Screwfix and look at the showers you can read the installation manual which shows the plumbing and elec points.

(all assuming yours come out the wall and are not surface mounted?)

lilitu93

macman wrote: »

Then at 7 years old I would change it now, you're probably only looking at an additional £50-ish. Bear in mind that if you put in a higher rated shower you may need to upgrade the cable, eg 6m to 10mm, and that will be an additional cost.

Thanks. That's what we're thinking. We just need to shop around for a quote, and I'm sure I'll be back on the boards asking about that.

lilitu93

jimbo_the_jetset wrote: »

And be aware Mira plumbing & electric locations are slightly different to Triton. So if your elec and water pipe come out the wall in a certain place best to check first. If you go on Screwfix and look at the showers you can read the installation manual which shows the plumbing and elec points.

(all assuming yours come out the wall and are not surface mounted?)

Thanks for the warning. Sorry if I'm being dim, but what's the difference between coming out of the wall and surface mounted? There wasn't a shower before we installed ours - we just had those hoses you attached to the bath. So the people who installed it had to put everything in, but I don't how they did it.

mikey72

Wickes own brand used to be made by Triton, all the paperwork had Triton on it inside the box, so a straight swop, and about half the price. Ours has been in about 8 years so far.

macman

lilitu93 wrote: »

Thanks for the warning. Sorry if I'm being dim, but what's the difference between coming out of the wall and surface mounted? There wasn't a shower before we installed ours - we just had those hoses you attached to the bath. So the people who installed it had to put everything in, but I don't how they did it.

It means, does the supply pipe run on the surface or is it buried under the tiling? If the latter, and the inlet point of the new shower is different, then you have to modify the pipework, which involves taking chunks out of the wall and then making good. Same principle with the power cable applies.

lilitu93

macman wrote: »

It means, does the supply pipe run on the surface or is it buried under the tiling? If the latter, and the inlet point of the new shower is different, then you have to modify the pipework, which involves taking chunks out of the wall and then making good. Same principle with the power cable applies.

It's definitely not on the surface then. Our tiles don't go as high as the shower, so it's just wall that it's installed on. There's also some panels on the side that can be unscrewed to get to the stuff behind.

Our shower model isn't made anymore (T80i), but the T80si seems to be the replacement for it. I also noticed a site said that it's designed for low water pressure, which I think we sometimes have had problems with (we're on the top - 4th - floor), so maybe our best bet is to replace it with that model.