# triton shower stopped working



## lemrac

Hi,

I Have an electric shower [ Triton]. It stopped working mid shower. We have one of those cord pull on/off switches outside the shower cubicle. When you pull on the cord the red on light goes on no problem but when you push the button on the actual shower unit it won't work on knocks out the red light on the on/off cord switch in the bathroom.

We called an electrician but with classix irony the shower worked again the day he came. he nonethe less looked at the on/off switch and the shower unit and said they seemed fine.

Next day the shower stopped working again and hasn't worked for the last week.

Any advice would be great.

thank you

L


----------



## penalty

Has your water supply been off at any time? If so take the shower head of the hose and let it hang loose, then turn on the shower, when the water run's reconect it.


----------



## lemrac

The water hasn't been turned off.

L


----------



## Towger

I would suspect it is the pull switch, these often burn out. The neon (light) would require very little power to light, but when the shower it turned on, it pulls down the voltage. I am assuming it is not tripping a MCB/RCB etc.


----------



## lemrac

The electrician looked at the cord switch and said it was ok. However last night, I turned the fuse in the fuse box to off thus cutting off electricity supply and when I turned it back on this morning the shower worked though I'm expecting it to stop again. The shower itself does not trip the fuse. Any ideas what this might mean?


Just tried the shower and again it has stopped working
L


----------



## PADDYBOY99

My neighbour had a similiar problem. Out of memory there is a filter on those showers that if blocked can give problems. Turn off your shower at the mains( ELectrical Fuse Board). Open the cover and just after where the hose enters the shower there is a little filter that resembles one of those nitting thimbles that your mother used years ago. Clean this out. It may solve your problem .Let me know how it goes. Again make sure the mains are isolated and if you do not feel comfortable get an Electrician to do it for you.


----------



## lemrac

checked the filter it's ok. It really seems to have something to do with the electrics. I turn off the fuse again last night, turned it on this morning and the shower worked for two minutes before cutting out. I'm a bit flummoxed as the electrician thought things were ok and they are clearly not.


----------



## dave28

i had a similar problem ... I called the service company, For some reason a section of wire had come loose in the shower unit. (Frankly, i think this fault was created by a previous maintenance call but i cant be 100% sure of this)


----------



## johnspica

Call the Triton people in Maynooth, they offer an excellent service and don't seem to be too concerened about expiration of warrantys


----------



## lemrac

got onto the triton people in Maynooth they reckon it's an electrical problem and so outside their care. I guess I'm going to have to call another electrician-no point in calling the one I had out who found nothing wrong! Any reccommendations?

thank you guys for all this


----------



## JMR

lemrac said:


> The shower itself does not trip the fuse. Any ideas what this might mean?
> L


 
When you say the shower stops working do you mean that the MCB trips at the board and requires re-setting (in which case your neon indicator on the pull-cord switch goes out)


----------



## lemrac

sorry I don't know what an MCB is! If you mean the main fuse board ,this doesn't trip. It is the cord switch that cuts out. Don't know if connected but we had a problem about a year and a half ago with the cord switch not working and when the elecrician checked the wires inside were pretty much melted. He replaced the wiring and the shower had been fine up until now.


----------



## Leo

lemrac said:


> sorry I don't know what an MCB is! If you mean the main fuse board


 
Yeah, MCB is a circuit breaker in the consumer unit (CU), the modern replacement of the old fuse board.



lemrac said:


> Don't know if connected but we had a problem about a year and a half ago with the cord switch not working and when the elecrician checked the wires inside were pretty much melted. He replaced the wiring and the shower had been fine up until now.


 
Did he also replace the switch? Melting means there was some serious over-heating there, which can be caused by loose or under spec'd wiring, so the switch should have been replaced from a safety perspective.

The fact that your shower works for a while, then stops may also indicate a problem which only manifests itself when the wiring or other components are warm. 
Leo


----------



## lemrac

From memory I think he replaced the switch but I'm not sure. Should I be concerned that the MCB is not tripping if the switch is overheating[ it didn't trip last time either when the wires melted] I has the MCB fitted about four years ago.


----------



## JMR

Sounds like the problem is with the pull cord switch.
If the cables are not tightly secured in the terminals of the switch there can be slight movement which generates heat at such a high current and can lead to your previous problem of the switch effectively melting.
You could be in the early stages of the same problem again.

To determine where you stand (if you feel confident to look at it yourself) switch down the MCB at the board, if in doubt which one supplies the shower then switch them all down.
Open the switch and examine the cabling inside, you might see that the cables and/or the terminals where the cables enter the switch are blackened or melted.
If this is the case you need a new switch

Just as an aside, when your shower stops working does an 'Overheat' or something similar indicator light on the shower unit itself?


----------



## lemrac

hi,

got another electrician out. He checked the wiring in the switch and shower unit also the cables in the attic. All seemed fine. He then checked the MCB: the cable going into the shower fuse was loose. He fixed this and this fixed the problem! Hope this might be useful to someone with a similar problem and thank you all again for your advice!

L


----------



## JMR

lemrac said:


> hi,
> 
> got another electrician out. He checked the wiring in the switch and shower unit also the cables in the attic. All seemed fine. He then checked the MCB: the cable going into the shower fuse was loose. He fixed this and this fixed the problem! Hope this might be useful to someone with a similar problem and thank you all again for your advice!
> 
> L


 
Very good, should have thought of that since you did say that switching the MCB down then up resulted in the shower working again.


----------



## Coolaboy

Hi Guys. Have a Trition T90. When I pull the cord the red light in the pull string unit goes on. However when i press in the ON switch on the shower unit no water comes out and I hear the pump working. Secondily the light on the base unit light does not work (go red.) The light on the pull string unit stays on throughout this excerise.


----------



## kramkroc

Hi Coolaboy, did you ever get to solve that problem with your shower, i'm new to the forum and i know it was a long time ago, any help would be great.


----------

