changing from Pumped to electric shower

macman2010

Hi all
looking for a bit of advise here.
We have a pumped shower with the dual pump located in the hot press in the spare room and are thinking of changing to a pumped electric shower (triton T90 or equivelant).
The reason we are changing is because we have a baby on the way and the noise from the pump is going to cause a problem for the child in that room.
I can get a quieter pump but it will still be noisy.

So i was wondering if changing to a pumped electric is the best solution.
Are they any good?
Are they reliable?
Is the flow rate decent?
Thanks in advance

Joey the lips

The pumped shower is

Good
Reliable


The flow rate is poorer in the winter than the summer because the shower has to work harder to heat water

The noise from the pumped electric shower will actually be no less than the noise from your current pump. Have you tried to buffer the pump by putting a tile underneath it and fixing the pump to it.

macman2010

Thanks Joey
No i dont try any acoustic measures as yet.

we are getting the bathroom re-tiled discussed the option of getting a pumped shower but from what you say it sounds like i will be moving the noise from the pump from one side of the house to the other.

There does not seem to have any obvious advantage to changing over to a pumped electric unit, aside from instant hot water that is.

i will try the tile and corkboard solution to dampen the vibration from the pump and see it it helps somewhat.

Bruthal

The flow rate on insant showers is a fair bit lower in winter alright, because the elements always put the same heat into the water, so for a bigger increase in temperature in winter (water in attic tank colder), the flow will be reduced by the user when they increase temp with the dial. The temp dial just varies water flow on instant electric showers.

Winter - bigger temp increse to water but less volume per minute, and summer -smaller temp change = bigger volume per minute, but both have equal heat input to the water.

Flow rate will always be better on the pumped mixer shower as the water is already heated, so flow rate wont affect temp of it.

The advantage of the electric one is no preheating as you said yourself.


Id say it will be easier to damp the sound of the existing pump than the pump noise from the instant shower, especially if the instant one would be going on a partition wall.

youtheman

I had a Pumped Shower (Mira Elite ST) and when I got the solar system in I got rid of it and put a pump in my hot press with a thermostatic shower mixer. I would never go back to the Mira/Triton again. Now I can hear myself think in the shower, and I don't have to run around the shower to get wet. Only downside is that I have to think ahead to make sure there is hot water in the tank. But my Solar controller will tell me what the temp is in the tank, and I have a zoned system with a high efficiency boiler so I have (what I think is) the optimum solution.

Bruthal

The optimum solution for one may not be for another though.

air

Instant electric showers only make sense for people that have a very irregular lifestyle and / or use the shower infrequently.
For everyone else:
They are usually noisier
They cost more to run than a shower heated by solar or a fossil fuel powered boiler
They are worse for the environment as a result
They contribute hugely to big swings in demand on the national grid (costing us all money)

In years to come I would expect that smart meters will use tiered tariffs where your electricity will cost you more the faster you use it - in order to encourage people to balance their usage better and discourage use at peak times. If this comes to pass it will make electric showers even more expensive to use, it is not likely you have a single other electrical appliance in your house that uses even half as much power.

Bruthal

air wrote: »

Instant electric showers only make sense for people that have a very irregular lifestyle and / or use the shower infrequently.

Really? Id say they can be very convienient myself.

They cost more to run than a shower heated by solar or a fossil fuel powered boiler

Solar maybe, but fossil fueled? Yes to heat the exact amount a shower will use would be. But while the electric shower heats the exact amount that will be used, heating a cylinder of water will waste some of the hot water. Its not practical to heat the exact amount that will be used in the mixer shower, and the main advantage the mixer has is much higher litres per minute flow rate, so more hot water is used. So again, it more than cancels out the cheaper per litre cost of heating the water with gas for example.

it is not likely you have a single other electrical appliance in your house that uses even half as much power.

Its a high power item, but is on for a relatively short time.


So overall, they each have their place. The ideal setup is one of each.

Bigcheeze

Life's too short to be enduring those poxy Triton showers that are so popular in Ireland.

I'd explore the sound proofing options OP. Once you've become accustomed to a decent shower you'll never enjoy a Triton shower again.

air

robbie7730 wrote: »

Really? Id say they can be very convienient myself.

I agree they can be convenient, especially if you don't know when you will need hot water.

robbie7730 wrote: »

Solar maybe, but fossil fueled? Yes to heat the exact amount a shower will use would be. But while the electric shower heats the exact amount that will be used, heating a cylinder of water will waste some of the hot water. Its not practical to heat the exact amount that will be used in the mixer shower, and the main advantage the mixer has is much higher litres per minute flow rate, so more hot water is used. So again, it more than cancels out the cheaper per litre cost of heating the water with gas for example.

Again I agree that you have a point, however heating a tank means that you also have hot water available for use in sinks (which is nice) and if you super insulate your tank and plumbing standing losses can be really minimised.
As for the higher flow, that's a choice the user can make, a tank can supply a low flow shower as easily as a high flow one, with instant electric heaters you're limited to reasonably low flow.

robbie7730 wrote: »

Its a high power item, but is on for a relatively short time.

Yes, but the problem is that everyone turns them on for that relatively short time at the same time. I'd imagine that a large proportion of showers are taken between 7am and 9am for example.
It's not unreasonable I think to say there could be 20,000 people using electric showers at any instant during those hours - 140 Megawatts of electricity!

robbie7730 wrote: »

So overall, they each have their place. The ideal setup is one of each.

Each to their own, personally I think they are the work of the devil
IMO we should be moving towards leveling our electricity demand, eliminating these kind of wholly unnecessary disturbing loads is one big step in the right direction.
Apart from perhaps boiling a kettle electricity shouldn't be used for heating anything. Turning high grade expensive energy (electricity) directly into low grade energy (heat) makes no sense from an efficiency perspective.

Bruthal

air wrote: »

As for the higher flow, that's a choice the user can make, a tank can supply a low flow shower as easily as a high flow one, with instant electric heaters you're limited to reasonably low flow.

Yea but the fact remains, its the higher flow rate for which most prefer them.

Each to their own, personally I think they are the work of the devil
IMO we should be moving towards leveling our electricity demand, eliminating these kind of wholly unnecessary disturbing loads is one big step in the right direction.
Apart from perhaps boiling a kettle electricity shouldn't be used for heating anything. Turning high grade expensive energy (electricity) directly into low grade energy (heat) makes no sense from an efficiency perspective.

Just because heating a cylinder of water with gas is cheaper than with an electric immersion, does this mean its automatically more efficient?

air

robbie7730 wrote: »

Yea but the fact remains, its the higher flow rate for which most prefer them.




Just because heating a cylinder of water with gas is cheaper than with an electric immersion, does this mean its automatically more efficient?

Agree on the flow rate but was just pointing out that you have the
option to choose flow rates on a cylinder fed shower, you are not forced to use a wasteful high flow head.

On cost vs efficiency, yes in this instance and generally in energy terms increasing costs reflect reduced efficiency.
Electricity costs about 3x that of gas per kwh, this reflects the face that the Esb need to burn 2-3 units of gas to produce a unit of electricity. You are also paying for the capital costs of the plant required to turn fuel to heat to electricity (only to turn it back into heat).
It is a far better use of infrastructure, more efficient and thus cheaper to burn the fuel where the heat is required (in your house!)

macman2010

Taking all the above into consideration i deffo will stay with the mxier shower. I did have a downstairs electric in my previous home and it was pritty rubish alright.

I was looking at the pump and its a stuart turner 3.3 Bar pump, great pump but very noisy. Also it apears to be way oversized.

My neighbour has a Techflow QT45 1.2Bar and its much quieter & flowrate is fine.

Bruthal

air wrote: »

Agree on the flow rate but was just pointing out that you have the
option to choose flow rates on a cylinder fed shower, you are not forced to use a wasteful high flow head.

On cost vs efficiency, yes in this instance and generally in energy terms increasing costs reflect reduced efficiency.
Electricity costs about 3x that of gas per kwh, this reflects the face that the Esb need to burn 2-3 units of gas to produce a unit of electricity. You are also paying for the capital costs of the plant required to turn fuel to heat to electricity (only to turn it back into heat).
It is a far better use of infrastructure, more efficient and thus cheaper to burn the fuel where the heat is required (in your house!)

That may be, and ive seen it all before down the years. But we may as well do away with motors and everything else except cfl`s so. Gas boilers heating cylinders of water is quite wasteful on average, as is using immersions to do it. Gas boilers also use a not insignificant electrical load in their operation, and the measured watts on a wholecurrent meter will be below what they actualy use with pumps having a bad pf. This is also true of motors in vacuum cleaners etc. What the standard domestic meter measures is only the watts used. Many items draw a higher current than the watts measured would indicate, although heating elements dont.

But this was about electric shower v pumped mixer shower. They both have their place. There is no point saying what will happen in the future with them. The main reason the pumped mixer showers are prefered is the much higher flow rate, so saying they can be turned down to lower levels would be defeating their main advantage, and is not what most users do. A user will use 2 or 3 times as much water per shower compared to someone using electric one, and likely more in the winter.

Electric showers are not going to match the output of a pumped mixer one. But they still have their place at the moment. Someone with a range rover would no doubt have difficulty going to a micra. Does this mean micra`s have no place now? Its all relative to the users.