Buying a Shower. Recommendations needed!

Flexy

Hello, First post here goes!

My husband and I have just bought our first house together, but our shower which is a Mira Sprint 9.5kw (its about 4 and half years old). Keeps cutting out and I have to shout at hubby to flick the trip switch and it comes on again. We have had a electrician out to check it and he says the cable is all fine and its ok for the shower so it must be the shower playing up. The spray is so weak so wondering as well if we get the same would the spray be more powerful?

Anyway we are getting a new one and I was wondering if anybody has any recommendations. We want to spend about £150 max. I also like to have a really strong spray (hope that makes sense) Any suggestions?

Thanks Lex

baldelectrician

The shower tripping is possibly due to the wiring not being adequate

Can you let us know what size the shower is (listed on sticker at bottom or top of shower)?

What size and type is the MCB ?

Is there a RCD present (these ususally have a test button)?

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: you'll never achieve a powerful spray from an electric shower...a pumped shower or a mains fed (from a 30 kW plus combi or unvented cylinder) yes....but as you're looking for an electric I'd recommend the 10.5 kW version of the Aqualisa Quartz Electric shower (may require an upgrade to shower's electric supply and a bit more than you want to spend).

HTH

Canucklehead

GreenSheep

Hello

How confident are you with stripping things down?

This is my assumptions (and hopefully someone will agree as I'm not that experience with electric showers):

If the trip you are talking about is an RCD then I'd assume you have a fault due to ingress of water. So I'd isolate, take the cover off, inspect, give the whole thing a nice spray with a water dispersing aerosole, allow to completely evaporate off and give it overnight with the heating on for good measure, replace the cover and then seal up with silicon around the edges/seals and test. You can buy water dispersing aerosoles from places like RS Comp. I don't know if Homebase, etc. will do them. I think it will be a few quid for a spray and the same for some silicon so this could be a nice cheap repair. In my opinion worth a try before replacing.

As for the weakness; might be worth stripping down the pump/motor to check for buildup/worn brushes/foreign bodies/etc. May find it is easily repairable or replacable. Again cheaper than a full new replacement.
If the trip is the breaker and not an RCD I would assume an overload and therefore focus straight away on stripping down the pump and leave the panel.

If you need to/want to replace the shower it might be worth investigating if you really need an electric one. This will depend on quite a bit including boiler type so some reading up could save you a fair amount.
Hopefully repairable and hopefully someone will confirm the above is not all rubbish.

Cheers