Help with shower choice please

littlereddevil

My mira zest has conked out.
What other models ( more powerful than the zest ) would fit the same plumbing and electricals please?

keystone

What do you mean by more powerful? Zest is either 7.5 or 8.5 kW so technically I suppose an 8.5 is more powerful but the water pressure won't change 'cos it'll be mains fed whichever one you choose but that will be the same for ANY electric shower. If you currently have a 7.5kW and want to change to an 8.5 then you need to ensure your cable and protection can take the extra load. Replacing an 8.5 with an 8.5 isn't a problem though.

Cheers

littlereddevil

It doesn't actually say on my shower whether it's 7.5 or 8.5. The house is around 8 years old.
Would it be too difficult to change it to a power shower?

keystone

littlereddevil wrote: »

It doesn't actually say on my shower whether it's 7.5 or 8.5. The house is around 8 years old.
Would it be too difficult to change it to a power shower?

No its not difficult but I doubt you want the disruption. An integral power shower (although it might look like an electric shower) requires totally different plumbing arrangements.

How is your current hot water supply configured?

In what way has the Zest "conked out"? It might be repairable but I detect that you are looking for an excuse to bin it anyway.

Cheers

minibbb

So should any 7.5kw shower have the same power/pressure as another? I only ask as when you look at shower reviews online people say "although its the same kw as my old shower, the older one was more powerful".

googler

minibbb wrote: »

So should any 7.5kw shower have the same power/pressure as another? I only ask as when you look at shower reviews online people say "although its the same kw as my old shower, the older one was more powerful".

An electric shower can't provide pressure higher than the mains water pressure, since this is what's fed into it, and it has no pump. Typically, the flow rate will be less than this according to the temperature you set on it. The longer the water spends in the heating chamber, the hotter it will be, and hence when you turn the shower up, the flow rate goes down, and when you turn it down, it flows faster.

Look at forums on www.showerdoctor.co.uk to determine if your Zest is showing any commonly-repairable symptoms.

Plumbers tend to replace showers without attempting to fix them internally, when an internal repair can commonly be cheaper than wholescale replacement. More environmentally-friendly, too.

The perception of new vs. old being more or less 'powerful' could merely be that one allows a larger throughput of water at a given temp than the other, due to internal pipe sizing, and size of the heating chamber.

littlereddevil

In what way has the Zest "conked out"? It might be repairable but I detect that you are looking for an excuse to bin it anyway.

Cheers[/QUOTE]

I just assumed it wouldn't be worth repairing !
When I say conked out it has just died, nothing happens at all when it is switched on.

keystone

googler wrote: »

An electric shower can't provide pressure higher than the mains water pressure, since this is what's fed into it, and it has no pump. Typically, the flow rate will be less than this according to the temperature you set on it. The longer the water spends in the heating chamber, the hotter it will be, and hence when you turn the shower up, the flow rate goes down, and when you turn it down, it flows faster.

A lot of peeps don't understand the difference between pressure and flow rate.

Look at forums on www.showerdoctor.co.uk to determine if your Zest is showing any commonly-repairable symptoms.

You quoted minibb's post but I guess you know it's not minis shower that has the problem. It would be nice if littlereddevil would tell us the symptoms here as already requested.

Plumbers tend to replace showers without attempting to fix them internally, when an internal repair can commonly be cheaper than wholescale replacement. More environmentally-friendly, too.

A rather sweeping generalisation n'est pas?

Cheers

keystone

littlereddevil wrote: »

I just assumed it wouldn't be worth repairing ! When I say conked out it has just died, nothing happens at all when it is switched on.

Has the breaker tripped? Do you get any indication of power available at the unit at all? Is the isolator switched on?

Cheers

littlereddevil

The breaker hasn't tripped. The shower light on the wall switch still comes on.Don't think there's power in the shower unit but not sure

keystone

Is it getting water? As the shower requires a dedicated cold mains feed it is more than likely that that has been taken from the cold mains riser in your roofspace and dropped down into the bathroom.

Have a look and see if there are parts of that pipe in the roof are exposed - particularly to drafts because that is where freezing can occur. If it is frozen warm gently with a hair dryer but have someone on standby at your stop c o c k in case a joint has popped. In that case the water can be shut off in the event that you have a joint failure and the lower floors won't get flooded. I'm being precautionary here not alarmist.

Cheers