New Shower advice please

iwantoneplease

I have an argos voucher for £169 I would like to purchase a shower to go over my bath, we have excellent cold water pressure, we currently have a mixer tap on the bath but the hot water pressure isn't enough so we can't use it as a shower.

I would ideally like an electric shower that can be fitted with plastic push fit pipes if possible as that is currently whats connecting my bath. also need one that doesn't need the pipes going through the wall as my bathroom is already tiled and I don't want to remove them. we will box them in and tile over them.

If anyone could recommend a good shower from argos please considering my above requirements if possible I would be grateful.

Thanks

EliteHeat

First of all, this answer will not address your question with regard to Argos and your voucher as they are not generally recognised as the first port of call for complex shower queries. If you can sell the voucher then you can shop anywhere though.

As I understand your question, you have mains cold supply to an existing bath / shower mixer. Due to the mains pressure overcoming the hot, your shower will not work. Your bathroom is tiled and you don’t want to disturb this, you don’t want pipes going through the wall. You think an electric shower is your best bet.

An electric shower will require a dedicated mains water supply, which can usually be surface, mounted. Piping up and installing the shower is easy, the hard and expensive bit is the electrics. Unless you are an electrician, you can’t do this and qualified sparks are not cheap and neither are the bits needed to make it work. When done you will have a shower rated at between 8.5-10.5Kw which is at best, pathetic. In the winter, you will wonder why you spent all that money on a shower that manages a lukewarm dribble. If you live in a hard water area, the shower will fail quite quickly unless protected from scale and mineral deposits, which it won't be.

A far better solution is to fit a whole of house single impeller electric pump suitable to pump hot water and then fit a pressure reducing valve to the mains supply to match the pumps output. This way you can use your existing shower and if you get a decent two bar pump, will have an excellent shower. You may need to turn the hot water on before the cold, but this is quite a minor issue.

It will need to be professionally fitted but will be a far, far better solution for your needs. The parts will probably be within your budget, but labour will of course be extra.

iwantoneplease

Hi thanks for that could you tell me a little bit more about the "single impeller electric pump" please as to where it would go and what system I need in place, as I've said our cold water pressure is excellent to the extent it makes the shower jump around the bathroom if on full power but the hot water is very slow throughout the house. We have a combi boiler downstairs and a small hot water tank upstairs in a bedroom. The cold water tank is in the attic. (not sure if this makes a difference) If I could get away without an electric shower it would be great.

Plus we both know electricians and plumbers so we can get good mates rates

Thanks

EliteHeat

You do not have a combi boiler. If you post the make & model and I can tell you what you have.

A single impeller pump is designed to pump either hot, or usually, cold water but not both. For both you would need a twin impeller pump.

The pump would be fitted to the outlet of the hot water cylinder and so each time any hot water tap was opened, the pump would start – be aware that they are not silent.

The idea of fitting a pressure reducing valve to the mains is to balance the hot and cold supplies. You will also need a non-return valve.

Before buying any pump, you would need to talk to the manufacturers to ensure that it it suitable to pump hot water and that it us rated for continuous operation.

You can pick up pumps on eBay very cheaply, get the installer to fit full bore isolation valves and possibly a bypass, so if it fails you can quickly fit a replacement yourselves.

Here is an example of a cheap, single impeller pump.

If you talk to your plumber friends, they will know all about this stuff.

iwantoneplease

Thank you,