Showers Won't Produce Hot Water

kah22

I’d appreciate some advice regarding showers

Recently I replaced two old showers, which I thought had reached the end of their useful life. What was happening was that the 15 year old, upstairs, was either producing boiling water or freezing water. The electronic one, downstairs, just stopped sending out water at all!

I bought two new 9.5 MX Duo QI (9.5kW) showers.

When the showers were installed neither produced hot water. The plumber who installed them is a pretty experienced guy; fter an hour or so trying to figure out what was wrong and a call to the showers service people there was still no joy so we requested a call out. The service guy couldn’t get the hot water either and the company said they’d replace the showers.

The showers were duly replaced but again no hot water. The service guy said he’d have to go and speak to the company’s service manager.

In the meantime I had called my local water authority and they came and tested the pressure and water flow into the house. This was done on more than one occasion and they were reading between 2.3bar pressure and 3bar pressure with a constant 10 litres flow.

Back came the service man he disconnected the shower and took a reading of the pressure from there, it read about 1bar and when he turned on another cold tap it dropped down to zero – ‘there is your problem,’ he said, ‘not enough pressure to drive the shower.’ Said there was nothing else he could do, reassembled the shower and left!

"Direct from Manufacturers Instructions- To make sure of activating the heating elements, the shower must be connected to a mains water supply with a minimum running pressure of 100kPa (1 Bar) at a minimum flow rate of 8 litres per minute."

I’m living in an old house, built in the early 60’s and as the man from the water board said it is possible I have a small pipe feeding the house.

But what confuses me is up until about six months ago both showers were working properly, and up until about a month ago the downstairs one was working perfectly and then just suddenly stopped.

What to do? Any ideas? I really would appreciate them.

kwmlondon

One thought, are you in a hard water area? There could have been more pressure but the pipes could have become clogged up. Also, do you have a cold water feed tank? It's possible something has gotten snagged up in the pipes. I'd suggest finding a way of getting a mains feed of the incoming cold water pipe (after the stop !!!!), maybe where it meets the cold water tank? Good luck.

southcoastrgi

the water co drop the pressure all the time to cope with leaks in the old pipes in the rd, it also effects combi boilers & even some manu's have been giving instructions on what to do to get the boilers working