Water heating costs v electric shower?

alleycat`

sabian2014 wrote: »

Wow, thanks for all the replies! The cost of installing a mixer shower would be offset by the fact that because we live in a hard water area, I am currently replacing the electric shower about every 2 years, not to mention shower heads! Therefore I have spend £100s over the years on electric showers. I don't think we would have the same issues with a mixer shower...hopefully.

Interesting.
Where exactly do you live.
This is my area:-

Water hardness type: Very hard
Water hardness average: 138.3mg/l calcium


I've replaced our 9.5kw shower once in 10 years. (last year as it happens).


I only replaced it because the cost of the replacement element was within £20 of the sale price of a brand new one.



I'll admit it's had 2 replacement shower heads but they were less than £15 a chuck.

Anyway back to the tank issue.

How large it is, how quickly does it heats from cold and do you have good enough pressure for a mixer shower to work effectively?


I suspect, unless your pressure is good, and you shower a reasonable distance apart that it'll be cheaper to heat but may introduce other issues that you didn't expect.



You might also find if you are showering very close together at 10 minutes a time the reason your showers are getting killed so quickly is they aren't rated to run for that length of time and it might not be the "scaling" of the element that is the ultimate reason for the death of the unit.


O and limelight/lemon juice semi-regularly is a winner.

Smiley_Dan

Is the pressure from the cylinder sufficient for a shower? It isn't in all properties.

In terms of comparing costs, think of the losses in a hot tank system:

- Storage losses - i.e. loss from the cylinder
- Primary circuit losses - loss from the pipes from boiler to cylinder
- Distribution losses - dead leg from the cylinder to your shower
- Capacity losses - heating more water than you need. Easy to do with a boiler coil because they tend to heat the entire tank

How much the above impacts you depends on your situation.

On the other hand, an advantage of going to a cylinder is that you can get free DHW from solar sources if you install PV.

nigelpm

sabian2014 wrote: »

Wow, thanks for all the replies! The cost of installing a mixer shower would be offset by the fact that because we live in a hard water area, I am currently replacing the electric shower about every 2 years, not to mention shower heads! Therefore I have spend £100s over the years on electric showers. I don't think we would have the same issues with a mixer shower...hopefully.

Crikey! We are in a hard water area and electric shower has gone for 7 years and quick clean out of the shower head every few months seems adequate. Used at least twice a day every day.

nigelpm

lstar337 wrote: »

Maybe not, but all those little points are trivial when the basic cost is taken into account. They are so insignificant compared to the gas/electric price difference that they can be ignored.

Why bother to mention them when the result is still the same.

That was my point.

I tend to disagree that they can be ignored. I just don't think it's that simple but we all have differing points of view.

macman

sabian2014 wrote: »

Wow, thanks for all the replies! The cost of installing a mixer shower would be offset by the fact that because we live in a hard water area, I am currently replacing the electric shower about every 2 years, not to mention shower heads! Therefore I have spend £100s over the years on electric showers. I don't think we would have the same issues with a mixer shower...hopefully.

Then you would be better off investing in a water softener-but even with hard water, a shower should last more than 2 years.