is there a shower that will work with both a combi boiler and the other sort ?

motherofstudents

Ok, I'm all googled out ! I've tried to find the answer to this and it has at least clarified how various systems work so I don't feel quite as stupid as I did. The reason I'm asking this is that my son bought a bungalow in December. It needs lots of renovating but it has a boiler which seems ok, was installed in 1997 and has a hot water tank in the loft. I don't know what to call this sort of boiler. In my house I have a combi boiler and a mixer shower. Now, the thing is I have said I will buy them a shower.....one that would work with their existing boiler is I believe a gravity fed shower. But, if they decide to change to a combi boiler at a later date, would the shower still work ? Sorry for rambling but I don't really know the right terms to use. Basically I don't want to spend money on a shower that they might not be able to use if they change the boiler. Thanks for any help.

jackieglasgow

Why not get an electric shower installed? We have had four houses since we got marride, and in each one the heating has always broken down, no matter what kind, (combi, non, underfloor and storage heating) but we could still have a shower no matter what. I would only every have an electric shower.

mark4joanne

Hi There, Your Son has a System boiler on most probably a Y plan system, This is where the primary system water (flow) is fed from the boiler to a pump (usually in the airing cupboard, but as its a bungalow it may be in the loft) It then goes through a divertor valve (or zone valve) to the rads one way and into the coil in the tank opposite to heat the hot water.
You can use a mixer shower (hot and cold feed) either manual or thermostatic but you will have to make sure you have at least 1mtr of head, this is the distance from the bottom of the cold water storage cistern to the top of the showerhead. (as the hot water tank is in the loft, the cold water tank will probably be up higher on some sort of frame so 1mtr head should be acheivable) You will need to take a seperate feed from this tank using a 3/4'' tank connector for the cold and use a ''showerflange'' from the top of the hot water tank for the hot. Bear in mind that the hot water tank can buckle easily when trying to undo the fitting on top. If you don't have enough head, you will need to run the hot and cold as above but into a pump first then into the shower valve.
This way, if your Son does change to a combi it will be a simple job of re-routing the hot and cold feed to the hot and cold feeds to the existing taps. (majority will be in the loft anyway as its a Bungalow)
Going back to the shower, Mira do good showers that work on only 0.1 bar of pressure but as the hot water tank is in the loft you should be ok. The trouble comes when people have installed a mixer shower on a gravity fed system with no pump and the hot water tank is in the airing cupboard ie. lower than the shower.

motherofstudents

Thank you so much for your replies. We've had electric showers in the past but I'm not so keen on them, although very handy if heating breaks down !

Thanks Mark for the detailed reply, that has clarified a few things. Just wondering, can you still get system boilers as everyone seems to have a combi. I'm starting to feel like an expert, ha ha only joking, Mum.

dave82_2

What you want to search for is a shower mixer that works on both high and low presure systems. You might find a mixer that works on a low presure system as standard and requires an adaptor for high pressure.

Is this becasue you aren't sure what you have?

gas4you

Plenty about.

Have a look at the Mira Excel

macman

You can have either a combi or a conventional boiler, however both types are now condensing boilers for domestic installations.

mark4joanne

Hi 'Mum'
As MACMAN quire rightly says, you can still get system boilers as well as Combis but they are all condesing now so do consider the siting as you will need to run condensate into a drain or ideally into your internal waste (to prevent the commom freezing problem)

Mira do a model called the 'miniluxe' which works with both gravity and pumped systems.