New electric shower - enough water pressure?

Enigma80

Hi all,

Our current electric shower stopped working and I need to fit a new one. We have 10mm cable installed and pressure seems to be fairly high. Can fill up a one litre bottle from the cold tap in the bath in just over 3seconds.

So what we have now is a Redring Expressions 550 and I'm looking at some Triton ones. I could just replace it for another 8.5kW, or I could upgrade to 9.5 or even 10.5.

Another thing I wanted to ask is whether it's a legal requirement that it must be fitted by a qualified electrician. A friend was adamant that it did, but I was under the impression that only the fusebox needed to be sorted by a qualified electrician and that the rest of the wiring could be done by myself???

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Ectophile

All work must be done in accordance with Building Regulations, but Part P (which deals with electrics) only requires that the council are notified for new work. Replacing a faulty appliance is not notifiable.

So it really all comes down to whether or not you are competent to do the job.

Mr.Generous

with 10mm cable provided you have the right fuse /breaker fitted you could fit just about any electric shower, a 9.5kw or 10.8kw will give a better water flow when set hot in winter (when the mains water is very cold) than an 8.5 unit.

DREKLY

As above, I am having fun too, trying to replace an old, but working Triton shower, but the water inlet is not in the same place as other showers I have seen, including newer Triton sohwers, which seem to be good, but at the cheap end of choice!

More expensive showers seem to favour timed shutdown, so the hot water is expelled first, before it turns off, presumably to extend the life of the internals?

The electrics are usually less of a problem, as there are generally multiple input areas for the cabling, but bear in mind, that size of cable is hard to bend into position. Good luck !

Enigma80

Hi thanks for your replies.

Ours has a timed shutdown too, about 10seconds. We do notice a lot that during winter when the water is much colder, the pressure goes right down in the shower. So I'm thinking of going for the 10.5.

It should be fairly easy to fit the new one. I just need to find a deal on one now. I've got a budget of £100 maximum, and I saw some on sale in my local Homebase £150 down to £70, but wasn't sure at the time what I wanted. They weren't on the website, so probably older models reduced for clearance.