Electric shower question

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Lin03

Registered User
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Hi,
I know there are loads of posts on this already but I'm goggle-eyed from reading through them and I can't find the exact info. I'm looking for.
We've just moved into our new house. The shower runs off the tank and we have a pump so the pressure is good. However, it takes ages to heat enough water for 2 showers so we are thinking of switching to an electric shower.
Could the same pump be used for an electric shower and is there an never ending supply of hot water with an electric shower, pumped or otherwise?

Thanks!
 
dont know if you are able to use the pump with the electric shower, perhaps someone else can answer that one. If you are intending on converting boths showers to electric, you will probably have to install a trip switch type arrangement so that both showers cannot be used at the same time as most houses do not have a large enough electrical supply to service both at same time. This is what i have to install in my new build so i assume its the norm.

yes water is hot constantly as the electrics cause the water being supplied to be heated as its going through the system....so its not stored hot water as such - prob not explaining that very well!
 
Sloggi's spot on regarding the 2 x instant shower scenario on domestic supplies.
You could go for the option of changing one (most used) of your existing showers to an instant. That would involve a water supply directly from cold tank to shower (no pump) and a seperate electrical run to the distribution board.
The heating and pumping of water in this shower is instantaneous.
 
sloggi said:
you will probably have to install a trip switch type arrangement so that both showers cannot be used at the same time as most houses do not have a large enough electrical supply to service both at same time. This is what i have to install in my new build so i assume its the norm.
Click to expand...

Is there no way to have an electric supply that would feed two showers simultaneously?
In the event that the above is a posibility, can it be sorted out retrospectively and what would it cost?
 
check out [broken link removed] link...seems you can upgrade your supply. perhaps this would allow simultaneous supply. All i know is builder has to specify supply at time of build and one of the questions on form is how many simultaneous supplied electric showers will be in the house. if an existing house, with no current electrical showers i would imagine current supply would not be sufficient. Other than that i have no idea of the answers to your questions!
 
I think what Lin03 was saying was that there is 2 people using the one shower therefore she need not worry about the selector switch to stop two seperate showers being used at the same time. With regards to putting the pump on the water supply to the shower, I've never heard of this and don't know if such a product is available. I know that it can take a while to heat the water in your cylinder but I would much prefer a pumped shower to an electric shower. Would you not consider putting a timeclock on your hot water so it is hot in the morning when you get up? If you have a second shower in the house I would change that one to electric for the occasions when you are caught out.
 
If I were you I would only change 1 shower to electric as stated above,This way you need never have hot water in your tank in summer time, to do this you can leave your tank supply to run this shower but you will have to use a Triton T90 or similar because it has a built in pump, if you use a T80 unit it only runs with direct main supply water, either way you will have to get it fitted and wired properly.I find the only thing about pumped electric showers are they are noisy,
 
Con, you are correct. Sorry if I wasn't clear but I had meant that there wasn't enough water in the mornings for 2 people to take a shower.
Either the heating or the immersion has to be on for hours in order to get a decent shower and even then that's the end of the hot water once both people have had a shower.
It seems the immersion tank is small and it just can't heat/store any more water than that.
So that was my main reason for wanting to change to an electric shower - and I was hoping that I could use the pump already installed.

Thanks for all the replies.
 
Re: Electric shower & upgrading to enhanced ESB supply

Sloggi's link above shows that its possible to upgrade to an enhanced electricity supply at a cost of €800. Does anyone know would there need to be additional changes made to the internal wiring to deal with this enhanced supply? If so, anyone any ideas as to a cost guestimate based on a typical 4 bed semi?

Finally, is enhanced supply definitely sufficient to deal with two showers operating simultaneously?
 
In reply to serotoninsid regarding upgrading your supply, yes you would have additional costs in upgrading your supply cable from the ESB meter box to your fuseboard. This means that you have to replace the cable, possible but messy in a semi-d. If you had a bungalow or dormer it would not be a big deal. I'm not sure even at that if you can run 2 showers on the upgraded supply, you should really contact the ESB about this. It depends on your shower, check the amount of power it needs. Some showers need 9kW of power, therefore multiply by 2 gives you 18kW, on the ESB website they state an upgraded supply is 16kW. I always thought that the upgrade was bigger so you should contact ESB they will give you a definitive answer.
 
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