Electric Showers

Introduction

Electric showers are economical to run and relatively easy to install - often requiring only a thick connection to mains electricity and a single 15mm cold-water pipe running from the mains. They are designed o be installed by the DIY enthiast - but none the less it is probably a good idea to get your work checked out by an electrician and plumber if you are new to this sort of thing. I always remember a mate of mine who said that his electrician had managed to get such a good trade discount on his shower that he was able to buy it and install it for less than the price of the shower from Argos.

The main points to watch out for are:

1) Make sure you use the correct thickness of wire running from the main consumer unit and at the consumer unit make sure that you have the correct grade of fuse or trip. Showers use a huge amount of electricity so they need enough wire for all that soup to get through.

2) Run the water pipes right from the rising main source - putting them anywhere else can result in poor shower performance and at times dramatic changes of temperature when someelse goes to the toliet at the same time!

3) The third and final point is to make sure that the water has somewhere to go. Installing a shower normally involves the application of copious amouts of tiles, grout and silicone. The long term effects of water leakage on old floorboards, tiles, plaster and ceilings are pretty nasty. Even if you think your shower isn't leaking it might well be that water is happily collecting in voids and rotting your floorboard and josts away.

Choosing and planning your shower

Using an electric shower could save you up to half of the water you would use for a bath and you do not waste energy heating water in storage tanks. They are rated in kilowatts (kW) - the higher the wattage, the better the performance of the shower because it is pumping more jucie into the shower. A lower kW shower will still produce the same temparature water - just less of it than a higher kW shower. Electric showers pretty much rely on the pressure of your water - if you have low water pressure then it doesn't matter what sort of KW shower you have you'll still get a trickle. If you have low water pressure then it is possible to use a power shower or buy a shower pump - this will soup up the pressure a bit.

As with all things your probably best off not buying the cheapest shower - and the most expensive probably wont give you much more than a good mid range shower.

Its also worth bearing in mind where you are going to site the shower. If your bunging it above the bath it is very easy to install but it can be tricky to divert past the hot water system - remember electric showers need to run straight off the rising main - that is you need to take it from a pipe before that pipe goes into anything else.

At this point is it worth looking at what sort of hot water or heating system you have in the house. Many modern houses now use a combi boiler and do not have hot water cylinder or tanks in the attic. These sorts of system are not suited to electric showers because they are pretty much doing the job of an electric shower anyway. FOr this sort of system all you need is a mixer shower - these just control the temperature of water coming through. For some reason Ive never been able to work out mixer showers are a lot more expensive than power showers and electric showers.

Any back to that electric shower. Luckily most storage cylinders are placed in the airing cupboard in the bathroom - you can run a shower off the cold water feed for that storage cylinder. Alternatively you can take it from the cold water feed going into the tank in the attic. There are one or two electric showers that will run off the cold water tank in the attack - Ill come back to them later.

Installation

So first of all decide where the shower is going to go. THis might not be a completley asthetic decision as it might be a lot easier to install the shower near to an existing cold water supply and/or near to a place where you can run a cable supply. Bear in mond whereever you put it that you will need to lose your wires and your pipes behin the wall. You might be lucky and find you have dry lined plasterboard walls or stud walls - but for most people this will involve hacking out large groves in the wall. If you have a lovely tiling system you will need to think about replacing it!

So site the shower and then work out

a) How you are going to get the power to the shower?
b) How are you going to get the water to the shower?

Both these supplies pretty much have to come from the mains so the chances are you could be looking at quite long pipe or cable runs. Most of these runs will be made either under the floor or above the ceiling. You've also got to remember that is you do suffer from low water pressure that the longer the run and especially the larger number of 90 degree bends you have the worse the water pressure will get. In some ways the same holds true with electricity though the length of your eletric cabl run needs to be a lot longer before you run into problems.

So work out a cable run from your consumer unit to the shower, hopefully youve have a spare socket in your consumer Unit for a hefty 32 amp (or even higher) trip or fuse. Your shower will tell you what size fuse to use - only the very low KW ones need a 32 amp fuse. Then you can trial your 15mm wire to the shower - remembering to put cable clips to keep things neat and tidy. Loose laid wire or twisted wire does not have the same effieciency as wire running striaght.

Then do the plumbing to get the water to the site for the shower. You can use any sort of means of plumbing - though if its going to be a long run take this as an opportunity to learn how to do solder ring joints. They are quick, economical and easy to install and give you a sense of satisfaction. You could use the push fit fittings if your feeling hopeless - I haven't had one leak yet but they dont seem to give the same sense of satisfaction as a blow torch. They also seem less impressive if there is someone you are trying to impress...

Im presuming now that youve done the pipe run and the cable run and youve got never plugged in just yet. If you have you'll either be very wet or very dangerous by now. Maybe I should have said this earlier, but the very last thing you do is turn the water and electricity back on.

At the site of the shower your going to have to first have a good look at your shower and figure out where your electricity cable and your pipes are going to come into the unit. Many new showers come with templates to make this job easier. These templates stick to the wall and then you can work everything out and install it all withoutworrying about damaging the shower. Then you get a hammer and bolser chisel and hack off the plaster and a bit of the wall to create enough space for the conduit for your water pipes and your cables. Definately do not keep the cable and the water pipes near to each other. I know when I do this sort of dusty hacking that I suddenly thing it wont matter if the pipes show - but with the cable you should definately not allow any=one to go near it when they are in the shower. An angle grinder will make mincemeat of this job. The technique is to run two pararrel line down the wall say about an inch deep and then run a chisel between these lines. The plaster and blcok beteen the two will just pop out. If might also be an idea to get your family to pop out of the house at this point because angle grinders are also very good at making huge amounts of dust. You also need to wear gloves, glasses and a mask and put cloths under any doors to stop the dust escaping to other parts of the house.

Most shower installations involve hacking out the wall on the other side of the shower and running the electricity cable right into the shower from behind. The cable will be broken half way to the consumer unit by a lighted switch - if this switch is going to be in the bathroom then it needs to be a pullcord.

If you have planed things right you should now be able to offer the shower unit up onto the pipe. The shower unit itself will have fixing screws - but you might also want to make sure the pipe itslef is screwed securely to the wall. There are elbows you can get for pipes whih have screw holes in them - these are ideal for securing the pipework to the wall and adding to extra stability. Follow the manufacturers instructions carefully now about when to turn water on and when to turn the electricity on. Personally I like to do the water first cus then I an get all wet without worrying about electricity. Turn your mains water off (and your boiler as well) and connect your pipe run with some sort of stop valve. This valve will enable you to service the shower without turning off the supply to the rest of the house.

Showers connected to the rising main must be protected with a double-check non-return valve fitted to the branch pipe - this prevents dirty water being siphoned from the bath or shower tray back into the drinking supply. This applies only if the handset can come into contact with used water. Caution must be exercised when inserting double check valves in the water supply. If unsure, contact a professional plumber.

Turn the water back on gradually if you can and check for leaks throughout the new run. I find a pipe will leak even with very little pressure so you dont have to make a big mess. If a pipe doenslt leak with very little pressure it aint going to leak at all.

A really important place to check for leaks is near the shower - and especially behind the shower. It is here that even the smallest can go undetected once youve tiled up - but over a period of time it can cause you a great headache. It might be worth leaving the system pressurised overnight just ot make absolutely sure you've got no leaks.

So having connected up your water to the shower, you can now do the electricity - following the manufacturers instructions carefully. Some general guidelines are:

1) You need a dedicated radial circuit running from the consumer unit - ideally with its own . 30 milliamp Residual Current Device. Modern electrical installation normally have this buklt into the protection of the house anyway.

2) Use 10mm two-core-and-earth cable for the circuit, which must be protected with a 40amp Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB) or a 45amp fuse in the consumer unit. You might need to intall a new consumer unit or split your old one - a job for an electrican!

3) All non-electrical metal components such as pipes, baths and basins should be joined with supplentary bonding earthing cable that then runs to the consumer unit where it is connected to the earthing block. Thats the thick green and white wire. Connect the cable to pipework with purpose-made earth clamps and attach it to the special earthing tags on metal baths and basins. Your shower unit must also be bonded to the pipework, using the earth terminal provided in the appliance. Your shower instructions should help with this.

4) There must be a separate 45amp double-pole switch to isolate the circuit. The isolating switch must be out of reach from anyone using the shower, must have a contact gap of at least 3mm and a light which is normally incorporated in the switch to show it is on. Most DIY stores will sell these for shower DIY enthuiasts.

Turn the electricity on and then go and test the shower. Turn the switch on and off to check tat is working correctly and then turn the shower on.

Finally you can fit the shower head and rising rail. FIn the tallest member of the family and then site the tallest part of the rail above 3 or 4 inches above his head. Then connect the flexible hose to the shower head and to the shower unit.

If all is working well set out re-tiling the area and making good.

Drainage

If you are installing the shower above a bath you wont need to worry about drainage because the bath i already doing that for you. However you should make sure the imeediate surrounds of the shower are watrer tight - tile as much as you can be bothered, install a shower screen or curtain to go around the immediate shower area and make sure there is a flexible filling solution between the bath and the tiles immediately above it.

If you are installing a shower cubicle then you need to make plans for correct drainage. WOrk backwards from the nearest source of drainage - this could be the drainage form the nearest sink or bath - or it could be a man hole outside. If its the latter find something better tospend your money on. As a rule though the pipe needs to slope downhill - not necessarily by a lot - but enough for the water to drain away.

A shower tray is nearly always easier to install on a platform - this often solves the drainage problem because you are gaining some height to start with - and it often means you dont have to worry about getting the floorbaords up. Do your drainage first and then make the platform and decide on the final location for the tray. You should be offering the tray up to the drainage (not buying six million 12 degree bends to get exectly the right angle). The tray will need a trap and this can be adjusted slightly to the angle of the pipe it needs to be joined onto. SHowers have special flat bottomed bottle traps which you can clean from the top - dont bother with any other sort of trap than this.

If the tray is to be sited on a wall or in a corner it should be recessed slighly into that wall to prevent water going down behind the tray. This might involve more hacking! The tray will often have a V type perimeter - this is so that you can fill that void with a concrete mixture and then site the tray itself onto a thin bed of mortar to stabise the whole thing. As with brockwork its best to lay the mortor as a sausage where the tray is going to lay and then press the tray down onto the mortar and making sure evrything is completely level. This will help to ensre that the water flows away in the tray as it was supposed to.

A layer of flexible silicone should be put between the tray and the wall and then when you have done the tiling between the tiles and the tray. If you dont use flexible silicone it will crack and the tray will m ove around a great deal as people get in and out of the shower. If you dont use silicone at all the water will get behind the tray and then eventually into your floorboards and rot them. That really would not be very much fun at all!

Electric Showers Links

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1-0 The shower unit must be connected to an independent 230/240 V AC supply via a 45amp double pole isolating switch for electric showers or a 3amp double pole isolating switch for power showers with a minimum contact gap of 3mm in both poles. If installing an e lectric shower kilowatt rating advisable contact local electricity supply company electrical shown

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