Shower help please

travellinglight_2

Hi. My son has just moved into his 1 st flat. Sadly it uses economy 7 and has no shower. So it takes a lot of water for a bath and he has a timer type immersion switch to heat water. He baths daily at least and wants a shower. It will have to be over the bath.
So? The hot press with the immersion tank is next to bathroom and meter box is less than 2 m from bath in adjacent hall.
How do we know if a mixer tap type shower would work, if he needs a power shower or electric.
Rang one guy from paper and he said electric shower...@£150, electric work @£200 and his plumbing work @£250 this wont include tiling above the existing tiling for part of 2 walls!!, nearly choked... Am I naive? Can someone please advise how we look at this and what to ask? Many thanks

mehera

Depends what the water pressure is like coming out of his taps - where is the hot water cylinder located in relation to the bathroom?

Is the property all on one floor?

marcowil

I had a similar setup until last year, and just had a mixer type shower over the bath. My hot water tank was on the same level (in a bedroom). This worked well and while the pressure wasnt brilliant it gave us a perfectly acceptable shower.

My suggestion would be to buy a kit from Argos to test it out before spending a lot of money on new taps etc

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8336178.htm
or
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8336185.htm

keystone

travellinglight wrote: »

Hi. My son has just moved into his 1 st flat. Sadly it uses economy 7 and has no shower. So it takes a lot of water for a bath and he has a timer type immersion switch to heat water. He baths daily at least and wants a shower. It will have to be over the bath.
So? The hot press with the immersion tank is next to bathroom and meter box is less than 2 m from bath in adjacent hall.
How do we know if a mixer tap type shower would work, if he needs a power shower or electric.
Rang one guy from paper and he said electric shower...@£150, electric work @£200 and his plumbing work @£250 this wont include tiling above the existing tiling for part of 2 walls!!, nearly choked... Am I naive? Can someone please advise how we look at this and what to ask? Many thanks

What Mehera has asked is correct and I have some further questions:

What is the cold mains pressure and flow rate?

What is the hot pressure/flow rate at taps from the cylinder?

Is the cold to taps fed from mains or via a tank? If the latter what is the pressure/flow rate as opposed to hot via your tank? An electric shoiwer requires a cold mains input and if the pressure/flow rate are inadequate then an electric shower won't work and it will be necessary to suggest an alternative. A power shower requires hot and cold feeds from the tank but will also have similar dedicated electrical supply requirements as an electric shower. The other alternative will be to pump the supplies using a separate pump either feeding a bath/shower mixer or a separate wall mounted shower. In both these cases it will be preferable that the shower is thermostatic.

If its all on one floor as asked by Mehera does he have one of these:



Which is a combination cylinder where the cold stored water is held in the small section at the top and the hot water is stored in the larger section at the bottom? Alternatively are the cold and hot storage separate?

Will the landlord permit these sort of alterations? (Edit: Already asked by another poster I see).

None of these are going to be cheap - choking might be the obvious reaction for you but you aren't going to see much change from that I'm afraid. To be fair to the guy you rang up he has given you some numbers off the top of his head without seeing the problem first hand and in any case you need at least three quotes form people who have seen the job to get a meaningful comparison.

Is there a swimming baths nearby? He could always take an early morning or late pm swim and then shower there in comfort. No I'm not being sarcastic. It may well be a viable and relatively cheap short term solution for him.

Either "push-onto-the-taps" solution as suggested by a further poster is also perfectly viable even though they may not give the sort of showering experience he thinks he wants.

Cheers

travellinglight_2

Wow, thanks for these replies. I will check and confirm. There is a water cistern that heats water and a rectangular black thing that I think hols cold water? This sits just above the water tank. The base of the black unit is @ 5.5 os 6 ft from ground. Theses are all on one floor. I will take advice and buy a pop onto taps bit and see how it goes. The plumber was in the flat ... That is his ball park figure and he's going to get me actual quote soon. .... Thanks again

keystone

travellinglight wrote: »

Wow, thanks for these replies. I will check and confirm. There is a water cistern that heats water and a rectangular black thing that I think hols cold water? This sits just above the water tank. The base of the black unit is @ 5.5 os 6 ft from ground. Theses are all on one floor. I will take advice and buy a pop onto taps bit and see how it goes. The plumber was in the flat ... That is his ball park figure and he's going to get me actual quote soon. .... Thanks again

Ahh OK now the mists cleeareth a bit. Sorry but now I have to tell you that pop-on thingy isn't going to work and you will be wasting your time and money with it. In order to be used the shower head has to be raised up so someone can stand under it. That will mean that the shower head will be above the level of the base of the cold water storage and probably quite close to the top. Because of that there will now be no pressure differential between the tank and the shower head and without that pressure head neither hot nor cold water water will flow.

Sorry.

Cheers

travellinglight_2

keystone wrote: »

Ahh OK now the mists cleeareth a bit. Sorry but now I have to tell you that pop-on thingy isn't going to work and you will be wasting your time and money with it. In order to be used the shower head has to be raised up so someone can stand under it. That will mean that the shower head will be above the level of the base of the cold water storage and probably quite close to the top. Because of that there will now be no pressure differential between the tank and the shower head and without that pressure head neither hot nor cold water water will flow.

Sorry.

Cheers

Thanks..... So my option is either electric or power shower? or should I say his option.... Cough cough!!!

fluffpot

Can't you have a pumped shower (ie not an electric shower) but one which uses water heated econ 7 from the tank and then a pump to get the water 'up' to shower level??

Plumbers may know better than me....

Mind you pumps aren't that cheap either, but the electrical work should be much cheaper than an electric shower

mehera

Getting an electric shower/or a pumped water supply is so expensive it makes some people even consider just converting to a combi boiler system and be done with it!

the only cheap solution:

- use the bath instead!