Shower goes freezing cold to scolding hot!!

Rsloan_2

So weve lived in our house since June last year and over he winter the water in the shower has been a pain. We cant get a good temperature and turning the heat up or down on the boiler makes no difference. At the minute it is cold more times than it is hot and weve had enough.

The radiators are hot and the other taps get hot so am I right in thinking it is just the shower unit?

My other half said about getting a plumber out but it seems fruitless and a waste of money, as i have already had a family member who is a plumber look at the boiler and confirmed it was fine (this was before the shower issue!)

Is there anything we can do to the shower unit or replace anything? It is electric and i know we can pick up a new unit for less than £200.....

Id be grateful for any advice, i cant take freezing cold showers at 6am anymore !!!128553;

Ebe_Scrooge

If it's an electric shower then the boiler will have nothing to do with it. An electric shower takes in cold water from the mains and heats it up as it goes.


In winter they do struggle to give a decent heat, simply because the incoming water is that much colder to begin with. Put simply, and just plucking figures out of the air by way of example - let's say the shower can raise the temperature of the water by 40 degrees. In the summer the incoming water is already at 10 degrees, so the water coming out will be 50 degrees maximum. If the incoming water is at 2 degrees, then the maximum output will be 42 degrees.


You could replace the shower with a new unit that is more powerful ( you'll commonly see them rated at about 8.5, 9.5 and 10.5 Kwh or thereabouts ). However, if you're upgrading to a more powerful shower you'll need an electrician to check whether the existing wiring can handle the extra load.


The other option would be to get a mixer shower installed, which is fed from the hot water tank. These tend to give a more constant temperature, they just depend on how hot the water in the tank is. However, you'll need a plumber to do this, and there's a fair amount of work involved - hence it won't be a cheap fix.

Enterprise_1701C

It is worth mentioning that an electric shower only has a cold feed, so definitely nothing to do with the boiler.

It could simply be that the shower is failing, have you any idea of how old it is?

We have a 9.5W Triton electric shower, once we have the temperature set up right it barely varies.

I am surprised at the £200 you quoted, is that like for like? You get fairly decent electric showers for under £100 but it depends what you are after.