New Power Shower - Water Not Coming Out as Hot as the Old One

chops018

Hi,

So our power shower broke last week - we got a good run, it was 11 years old this year (I think).

Anyway this is the new one we got in:

http://www.davies.ie/showering/showers/mira-vigour-thermostatic


Now the old shower model was "Essentials" - this is what was wrote on it, so I am not sure if it was Mira Essentials or what as I didn't see Mira on it anywhere. However, the new shower above looks exactly the same as the old one, so we thought great that it will be easy to use and will work the same way.

The plumber got the new one and fitted it today but for some reason it isn't as powerful, we don't mind that too much, and the water doesn't come out anywhere near as hot as the old one. Basically on the old one if you had the temperature thingie at the highest it would go, before having to push in the red button and go higher, it would be lovely and toasty warm. Now however, if you go to the highest option it is barely better than lukewarm. So I thought ah well not to worry, I'll just push in and hold the red thingie and it will come out warmer, did that and while it does come out warmer it still isn't as good as the heat that came out from the old shower, even when it's just on the normal temperature before you press the red button. The old shower when you held down the red button and pushed it beyond normal and as far as it would go it would be extremely hot, not boiling like but very, very warm, you would rarely even use it. Now, for our new one, we have it at this and as I said it's not even as warm as our old one on the highest temperature before even holding the red button and going warmer.

Is it just that the newer shower has lower temperatures or should it be the same?

I did notice that the thing for changing the temperature looks ever so slightly crooked compared to the thing for changing the amount of power for the water. It seems 1-2cm out but it defo is crooked, so I am wondering if it is such a small bit crooked would it even matter and if we were to get it positioned correctly by the 1cm then maybe the water heat wouldn't even improve. Would this be a factor at all?

diy.i.do

If the bath tap runs hotter...definitely something up. Get plumber back, also ring the manufacturer and ask if there is a temperature limiting setting on it.

chops018

Yeah gonna get plumber back alright or my friend to look at it.

Fecking raging!

The bath tap runs boiling.

Funny when you change the temperature on it to hotter it comes out boiling for a second but then it goes back barely warm.

Like it's not freezing but as I said our old one used to be really toasty warm on the highest setting before you would even push in the red button for the boost. You actually wouldn't want to get out of the old one it was that nice.

This new one however, when you have it on the absolute max, you're just kinda like ah well I'll just wash myself and get out I suppose. It's like if you just popped the immersion on for 15 mins for a quick shower but we had central heating and immersion on so the tank was absolutely boiling and still the same.


EDIT:

Just read here http://www.mirashowers.co.uk/onlinecatalog/pdf/mira_vigour_thermostatic.pdf that it is factory set to a safe max temperature, could this be it? Also, how do I turn this off?

diy.i.do

If it is damaged at the mixing valves or bent, its more than likely fecking up the temp.

chops018

Fecking thing is only brand new!!

Surely not damaged - or has this nothing got to do with the new shower?

Should the plumber have noticed this?

Also, old shower temps were just fine, it just stopped working, the motor went in the old one he said.

diy.i.do

chops018 wrote: »

Yeah gonna get plumber back alright or my friend to look at it.

Fecking raging!

The bath tap runs boiling.

Funny when you change the temperature on it to hotter it comes out boiling for a second but then it goes back barely warm.

Like it's not freezing but as I said our old one used to be really toasty warm on the highest setting before you would even push in the red button for the boost. You actually wouldn't want to get out of the old one it was that nice.

This new one however, when you have it on the absolute max, you're just kinda like ah well I'll just wash myself and get out I suppose. It's like if you just popped the immersion on for 15 mins for a quick shower but we had central heating and immersion on so the tank was absolutely boiling)

There normally is a red button to press in order to increase past this safe temp

chops018

Yeah, and as I said, when you press this red button and put it past the safe temp to the absolute max it will go it's still not even as hot as our old one was before you pressed the red button.

Thanks for the replies by the way!

Sleeper12

Ring the Shower Doctors on Tuesday. They repair / replace under warranty showers on behave of Mira UK. You will need your receipt as they won't honor the warranty without it. Mira try their best to wiggle out of the warranty . 01 620 5657

Davies is now a Mira agent so you no longer get honest advice as to what shower is best. All the showers on the trade room floor are Mira. You wont see a single Triton shower insight even though 3/4s of the showers they sell are Triton.

There is only one way to fit these & there are no settings inside the shower to adjust the temperature. So assuming the hot isolation valve is fully open then the installer has done nothing wrong to cause this. Mira Vigour, event & essentials are very cheaply made showers. you can see how thin the plastic is on them. They are the only power shower on the Irish market that only give a 12 month warranty. The norm is 24 months but some give 5 years parts & labour warranty. Aqualisa give 3 to 5 years.


I must point out that there is a maximum operating temperature for the shower. If the water is too hot coming in you'll damage the shower

John T Carroll

chops018 wrote: »

Yeah gonna get plumber back alright or my friend to look at it.

EDIT:

Just read here http://www.mirashowers.co.uk/onlinecatalog/pdf/mira_vigour_thermostatic.pdf that it is factory set to a safe max temperature, could this be it? Also, how do I turn this off?

It is more than likely the "adjustable maximum temperature stop" is set at 40C to 41C as the recommended safe showering temperature is 41C, I had a good look at the instruction manual for a Triton thermostatic shower before a friend installed one about a month ago and it seemed to infer that the maximum (factory set) temperature was 40C which is too low for alot of people but we were'nt too worried as there was clear instructions on how to increase this. In any event it didnt need any adjustment as even a setting of "5" on an index of, I think 0 to 9, would be too hot for me, friend uses a setting of between 3 and 4 he said.
I had a quick look at the instruction manual for yours and it shows how to adjust the max temperature with a little plastic tool (supplied??) but it states that this invalidates the warranty I think. If you have a household thermometer just measure the water temperature, it would be interesting to see what it is. Re the Red Button it states "Operation of the override button will allow a shower temperature above the preset maximum" and thats why it still feels too cold even when pressed as it is still a controlled (max) temperature in my opinion.

Edit: I misread the manual....it says that adjusting the max temperature will void the factory setting (not the warranty), and you or your plumber should have that plastic tool as its used in the installation process so perhaps a adjustment to this will sort you out.

chops018

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Got my friend who is an electrician to have a quick look as we didn't want to ring the plumber over Easter weekend to come down.

Friend said nothing appears to be wrong to him but like yee said get the plumber back if still not happy with it. He also said same as yee in that it has a safe temperature setting and that our older one probably didn't have this or that it was higher. He didn't try to change it or anything though, just said to get the plumber back if not happy.

@John T Carroll: do you think it would be hard to change this temperature setting ourselves? Even at number 9 the temperature isn't hot enough for us, we have to push the red button past the max to get any decent heat out of the water. My friend said that the heat coming out of it would keep him happy but not us, so each to their own I'd say. Anyway we would like to be able to have it hotter and if changing this ourselves wouldn't be a big job then we would prefer to do it than ring the plumber to come back.

Sleeper12

chops018 wrote:

@John T Carroll: do you think it would be hard to change this temperature setting ourselves? Even at number 9 the temperature isn't hot enough for us, we have to push the red button past the max to get any decent heat out of the water. My friend said that the heat coming out of it would keep him happy but not us, so each to their own I'd say. Anyway we would like to be able to have it hotter and if changing this ourselves wouldn't be a big job then we would prefer to do it than ring the plumber to come bac.

Read the manual that came with the shower. It shows how to change the factory settings. If you don't have a manual Google it and you can download one.

Ye must be all thick skinned in that house. I've fit 10s of thousands of showers and never been asked to changed the factory settings.

John T Carroll

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I've fit 10s of thousands of showers and never been asked to changed the factory settings.

chops018 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Got my friend who is an electrician to have a quick look as we didn't want to ring the plumber over Easter weekend to come down.

Friend said nothing appears to be wrong to him but like yee said get the plumber back if still not happy with it. He also said same as yee in that it has a safe temperature setting and that our older one probably didn't have this or that it was higher. He didn't try to change it or anything though, just said to get the plumber back if not happy.

@John T Carroll: do you think it would be hard to change this temperature setting ourselves? Even at number 9 the temperature isn't hot enough for us, we have to push the red button past the max to get any decent heat out of the water. My friend said that the heat coming out of it would keep him happy but not us, so each to their own I'd say. Anyway we would like to be able to have it hotter and if changing this ourselves wouldn't be a big job then we would prefer to do it than ring the plumber to come back.

It states on page 9, the maximum stop is set at 41C, depressing the override button allows the showering temperature to be increased by 5C to approx. 46C. Now all these thermostatic showers depend on a temperature difference of 12C between the hot water temperature and the required showering temperature for optimum performance so if this shower is operating properly and has been installed properly then as long as the hot water temperature is = or > 53C (41+12) you should get a showering temperature of 41C and 46C with the override, if your normal hot water temperature is 60C then you should have have plenty of hot water even without the override. Your friend should have no problem in adjusting the max temperature if he reads whats on the tin and has that little tool and if you still cant get at least those temperatures then I would ask for a replacement shower, if I were you I would invest in a thermometer first, take a few temperatures before making any adjustments and at least then you know where you stand, good luck.

Edit: See page 20 for max temperature adjustment. http://assets.grahamplumbersmerchant.co.uk/product-docs/12377/12377.pdf

greasepalm

curious reading the posts,did i miss the bit that the old or new power shower ran off a cold feed from attic as my 2 are triton and mira and not from the immersion in hot press.now added a rain head shower with 2 bar pump.

if my immersion is cold my rainhead will produce a cold shower whereas my mira and triton both heat the water.

John T Carroll

greasepalm wrote: »

curious reading the posts,did i miss the bit that the old or new power shower ran off a cold feed from attic as my 2 are triton and mira and not from the immersion in hot press.now added a rain head shower with 2 bar pump.

if my immersion is cold my rainhead will produce a cold shower whereas my mira and triton both heat the water.

If I,m interpreting your post correctly then you have a shower where the water is heated by an element inside the shower itself, there are two types of these, one is a pumped electric shower, ie there is a integral pump inside the shower body itself which takes its supply from a cold water header tank and pumps this through a heating element within the the shower body that heats the water to the required temperature, the other type is connected directly to the incoming cold mains which just pushes the water through
the heating element to achieve the required temperature, you would use the former where you have low or unreliable mains pressure. These were/are frequently mixed up, now if you see displayes in showrooms you may see "pumped" on some of the showers to distinguish them from the mains only electric showers.
The shower(s) quoted in the post have no heating element(s) and take the cold supply from the header tank and the hot supply from the hot water cylinder and use an integral pump to mix the two in a thermostatic control to give the desired temperature, big advantage is one can get very high hot (mixed) water flow rates compared to the ones with the heating elements, still more powerful versions are powered from an external pump and are generally referred to as power showers.

Sleeper12

greasepalm wrote:

curious reading the posts,did i miss the bit that the old or new power shower ran off a cold feed from attic as my 2 are triton and mira and not from the immersion in hot press.now added a rain head shower with 2 bar pump.

greasepalm wrote:

if my immersion is cold my rainhead will produce a cold shower whereas my mira and triton both heat the water.

The OP has a Mira vigour thermostatic power shower. These don't heat the water so need a cold feed direct from the attic tank & a hot feed from the cylinder.
It sounds like you have two electric showers mira & triton. An electric shower heats the water so they only have a cold feed.

greasepalm

cheers folks so he has a mixer shower using both feeds,its always the small print i cant read to say how its plumbed.
yes 2 electric showers.

John T Carroll

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I've fit 10s of thousands of showers and never been asked to changed the factory settings.

chops018 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Got my friend who is an electrician to have a quick look as we didn't want to ring the plumber over Easter weekend to come down.

Friend said nothing appears to be wrong to him but like yee said get the plumber back if still not happy with it. He also said same as yee in that it has a safe temperature setting and that our older one probably didn't have this or that it was higher. He didn't try to change it or anything though, just said to get the plumber back if not happy.

Don't know if you are sorted out or not but I just had a look at the friends Triton and the water is very (very) hot at any setting past 6 or 7, friend said he was there when the plumber installed the shower and he certainly made no adjustments to the max temperature so maybe you should insist on a new shower and/or make sure there is no obstruction in the hot ( and cold) inlet filters.

chops018

He didn't come back yet. We rang him Tuesday and he said he will come down when he gets the chance. If he doesn't come by next Tuesday we will ring him again.

As I said, the friend of mine who is an electrician and deals with electric showers thinks that the heat from the water is fine, so I dunno what to think.

Hopefully when he comes back he can get it past the factory settings.

Sleeper12

chops018 wrote:

Hopefully when he comes back he can get it past the factory settings.

Make sure that you have a cylinder of hot water when he arrives. Get him to put a thermometer on the hot coming out of the shower. If its not reaching factory setting temperature then it's faulty. He can adjust the factory settings but this will just temporarily mask the problem. If it's faulty it should be repaired now.

chops018

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Make sure that you have a cylinder of hot water when he arrives. Get him to put a thermometer on the hot coming out of the shower. If its not reaching factory setting temperature then it's faulty. He can adjust the factory settings but this will just temporarily mask the problem. If it's faulty it should be repaired now.

Will do, thanks. And will mention this to him as well.

Surely it isn't the tank etc. as previous shower belted out steaming hot water but it was just the motor that went in it and it stopped pumping water at all (so the plumber said anyway).

chops018

Update:

Plumber came back today.

My father dealt with him as I was at work.

He checked it all out and said it seems fine to him but my dad explained it's no where near as hot as the last one. He said this one has the safety factory settings (like all yee said on here) and that it's now illegal to set it past it.

He set it past it a little bit though my father said.

I haven't had the chance to try it though as there was a bit of a leak so we had to seal it up and it's drying now till tomorrow so it will be tomorrow evening I test it out.

Hopefully it's warmer than it was, even a bit warmer and I'll be happy.

John T Carroll

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Make sure that you have a cylinder of hot water when he arrives. Get him to put a thermometer on the hot coming out of the shower. If its not reaching factory setting temperature then it's faulty. He can adjust the factory settings but this will just temporarily mask the problem. If it's faulty it should be repaired now.

chops018 wrote: »

Update:

Plumber came back today.

My father dealt with him as I was at work.

He checked it all out and said it seems fine to him but my dad explained it's no where near as hot as the last one. He said this one has the safety factory settings (like all yee said on here) and that it's now illegal to set it past it.

He set it past it a little bit though my father said.

I haven't had the chance to try it though as there was a bit of a leak so we had to seal it up and it's drying now till tomorrow so it will be tomorrow evening I test it out.

Hopefully it's warmer than it was, even a bit warmer and I'll be happy.

It might seem fine to your plumber but I wonder what is/was the actual temperature and I think the legal max temperature to avoid scalding is 49C (120F). I have a solar system with a anti scald valve (ASV) on the hot water outlet from the cylinder, I have it set at its maximum which I have measured on a number of occasions at 49C to 51C, it varies a little depending on my hot water cylinder temperature which can go up to 75C on a good summers day. I also have a 9.5 KW Electric Shower which is non thermostatically controlled but has a overtemperature thermostat which will cut off the power to the heating elements, I didnt know what this setting was but I do now as I kept decreasing the flow rate slowly and measured the temperature at which the heating elements cut out.... it varied between 49C and 51C, average 50C. I could run the shower continuously at 47C/48C and I would suggest that this would more than satisfy anyone with insensitive skin or whatever.
I would go away myself and get that thermometer and simply check the temperature, its only my opinion but if 50C is the acceptable maximum temperature then I doubt very much if any H&S laws would be broken if your shower setting is adjusted to give 45C at its normal maximum setting, the override would then still only allow it to reach 50C.

Sleeper12

chops018 wrote:

He checked it all out and said it seems fine to him but my dad explained it's no where near as hot as the last one. He said this one has the safety factory settings (like all yee said on here) and that it's now illegal to set it past it.

He should have tested the temperature of the water with a temperature gauge that way you'd know if you had a faulty shower or not.
I'd love to know more about the leak? Sealing a leak sounds wrong