Question about overhead rain shower

tigeress289

Change your shower head, your plumber advised you totally wrong as already pointed out. What the other suggestions have not pointed out is the space you need to fit a tank and costs will just spiral. Use what you have with the system you have. The plumber/builder did not give you the right advise and more times than not, they did not know to begin with. Real tradesmen are losing out to this worthless so called builders. It is frightening how many people are being taking for a ride by these cowboys. Sorry, but you should reduce the head for now.

melb

why would you only use electric showers as a last resort? I'm only asking out of interest as our electric mira shower seems much better than our gravity fed one?

Decay_2

A possible remedy would be to limit the amount of water used by adjusting the isolator valve . Have a try on different settings

rustyboy21

It's the wrong type of showerhead to use with either an electric shower or a combi.

The cold water feed will always be more powerful then the hot water feed, doesn't matter if it from a combi or an electric heater, both will push out as much hot water as they possibly can, but if the pressure to get it up to the showerhead is not enough, then the cold water will always win out, i.e warm water out of the head.

A normal showerhead would have for example 40 jets? a rainfall showerhead could have 100 jets. This would mean that it would need more power behind the water to push it out, in the midst of this cold water will be at a higher pressure, so it will mix more with the hot water and create lukewarm water.

Wouldn't a pump fitted to the hot water pipe increase the flow and make the water hotter?

Need to get a smaller showerhead

fluffpot

You can't fit a pump to a system with a combi boiler.

Electric showers IMHO have more to go wrong, are much more expensive to install from scratch and are never as good as a pumped system. BUT where other factors over-ride, I do fit them, but just advise customers to check the other options - each situation is different!

Canucklehead

O.P. : your 24 kW Glow-worm has a maximum DHW Flow Rate of 10.4 l/min at 35oC rise. The technical spec for your thermostatic mixer provided on your link is sketchy to say the least. See page 15. Who chose and supplied the mixer?

As I said earlier....call your installer...there is a simple solution.

In the meantime, handy guides here for those who don't understand how combis and thermostatic mixer operate in conjunction.;)

GSR

Roaming

Canucklehead I feel like banging my head against a wall right now!

I chose the system after having sent the plumber the links to the site (not the fitting instructions) and asking if he thought it would work all right on our combi boiler.

I have no idea what the plumber has been up to because he did call the company and ask for instructions to be sent to his email address after which he said the link he was sent didn't work etc and so went on to do all sorts of silly things including fitting the whole system upside down. I'm not sure what he was sent so should not comment on that however I will call the company first thing tomorrow morning to confirm and ask what they suggest.

If lets say, they had sent him these instructions, and despite that he had misfitted the valve etc am I in any position to ask him to be responsible for fixing all the temperature problems or for that matter ask the main contractor to be responsible for fixing them. It would be a big cost as they would remove all tiles, take out concealed system and then re-tile once fixed.

I just tried having a bath and the water at the bath filler was just lukewarm... no need to mix the water at all, just turn it to hottest setting and its just about warm. CONFUSED! Do you think there could be some safety setting preventing water from getting too hot there? But it would have to kick in for the handheld shower as well. :-/

I don't know what to do.

Canucklehead wrote: »

O.P. : your 24 kW Glow-worm has a maximum DHW Flow Rate of 10.4 l/min at 35oC rise. The technical spec for your thermostatic mixer provided on your link is sketchy to say the least. See page 15. Who chose and supplied the mixer?

As I said earlier....call your installer...there is a simple solution.

In the meantime, handy guides here for those who don't understand how combis and thermostatic mixer operate in conjunction.;)

GSR

Owain_Moneysaver

If you want a stored hot water cylinder you don't have to change the boiler, you can run a cylinder off a combi; it's plumbed in the same way as a separate radiator circuit with its own thermostat and timer.

Not a lot of domestic plumbers are used to this system, but technically it's not difficult and is just a different application of the S-Plan-Plus control system.

A 390ℓ vented hot water cylinder is about £800, a loft water tank would be about £100-200 depending on size.

tigeress289

OP, you have had some excellent advice on the spec of your boiler. This is what the plumber should have worked to. Is the shower mixer thermostatic and the bath mixer? Chances are the bath is not. You could fit a thermostatic valve in the bath line. This would make the bath work better. And as already said, you can change the shower head. The time/money and space is the downside to trying to fit a tank system. You would be better off with a power shower if you really wanted to change what you have. You just had the total wrong advice from your plumber.

Canucklehead

Hi.

I am beginning to wonder if anyone understands what the OP has.

The arrangement is a thermostatically controlled water supply to:
1) A fixed shower head (rain head)

2) A shower handset on flexi hose.

3) A bath filler/overflow to fill the bath.

ALL the water is through a THERMOSTAT.

If the THERMOSTAT is not set properly if will NOT pass water at a usable temperature.

If the OP could just attempt to go through the set up procedure, as set out in the linked instruction, for the THERMOSTAT this will rule it in or out as the problem with the TEMPERATURE.

The FLOW RATE of the combi is another problem.

As it stands now the handset will give a good shower.

The bath will take forever to fill

The rain head will dribble out, BUT it will be HOT, just a very poor FLOW.


GSR.