Power shower issues

mollie78

Looking for some advice please... we have an old power shower (mira event xs, only shower / bathroom in the house), that runs for approx 15 mins before running out of hot water. Having 2 teenage girls in the house we'd like to get more out of it than that, without losing the pressure that a power shower gives. The hot water tank is I think 117L from a quick google (it measures 900 x 450).

Am I right in thinking that possible options include bigger hot water cylinder, replacing for an electric shower, getting a combi boiler(?) - or are there any settings we can change to get more hot water out of what we have? Any advice welcome - the cheaper the better!

xyz123

Have you tried increasing the temperature of hit eater within tanks. Often there is a thermostat on cylinder which is set around 65deg c (I think it needs to be minimum around 60 to avoid bacteria in standing water). If you can increase this to say 75deg then during shower you will use less hot water assuming you shower at same temperature as now...

mollie78

Thank you, no we haven't tried that, it's set to 60 on the boiler but not sure if / what it is set to on the cylinder, will look - was worried about potential scalding issues if its set too high though?

EssexExile

We have a 160L tank & the wife can empty that with one shower! I suspect the size of your tank is the problem, is there room for a taller one? Ours is 1200x450.

Heedtheadvice

Assuming you heat by gas or oil - rather than electricity to an immersion heater- then as above but also check the position of the thermostat. If located high on the cylinder than only part of the stored water will get hot. You may be able to relocate it one third to one half from the bottom or buy and fit a new one, they are quite cheap.

Also increase the temperature of the boiler. At 60degrees it takes a long time to get the cylinder up to temperature (and will never reach a higher temperature!). However if you have water at taps not thermostatically controlled, yes scalding becomes more of a risk.

I too had girls showering in earlier life and they do tend to shower for a long time and consequently use up more hot water. 15 minutes at ten litres a minute (150litres) puts that in perspective, possibly half of that from the tank that is filled with hot water only nearer the top the rest at the bottom cooler!

Cheap options:
You could fit an eco shower head -still higher pressure spray but less water used- encourage shorter showers( I failed on that score!) and ensure the water heating is on before and during use and cylinder up to temperature.

Fitting a much bigger tank (or switching on the immersion heater too) can be options. The former likely to cost over £200 provided you have space, the latter will assist to heat up the water in use a bit faster but is not as cheap as the options mentioned earlier but could help if used for short durations, electricity being that bit more expensive than natural gas but (from memory) comparable to oil.

mollie78

Thank you - yes we do have room for a taller tank if that would make a dramatic improvement. We don't use the immersion heater, the tank is heated by the gas boiler. I'll look into eco shower heads too - I'd assumed they would reduce the pressure.

macman

You can't run a power shower off a combi-it needs a tank supply. And even a powerful electric shower won't give you the flow rate of a (pumped) power shower, if that's what you currently have.
With a combi or an electric shower, you are ultimately limited by the mains pressure and flow rate, so a bigger tank is probably the best option.