How to fix an airlock in an electric shower?

Reese123

I apologise for repeating this thread, but I am at my wits end.

My water was recently restored. However, I have no cold water in the shower. That is, I have an electric shower, and when heating the water, hot water only comes out. When I turn the knob to the cold setting, only a small amount of water is released, and the released water is hot. Also, there's no water going to the toilet. I think this may be an airlock issue, but I don't know how to fix it.

I've contacted Irish Water, but they told me to contact a plumber. I've contacted multiple plumbers, and it looks like I'm going to have to pay no less than €80 to fix this. I've also contacted my landlord, and he told me to wait and see what happens. This was two days ago, and the problem started this past Tuesday. Please, help.

agusta

what is the make and model of the shower

Jane1012

We have a power shower (not electric) so I’m not sure if it’ll work the same but worth a shot. We regularly used to get airlocks, so what you have to do is let the shower head hang down, like nearly touching the ground, turn it to cold. It will make some splutters and noises and eventually will push through the air lock. To avoid air locks now we always let the shower run on cold for approx 20 seconds before turning to hot, seems to work well

Reese123

Hi Agusta,

The only thing I really know is that the shower is a Flair, and there's a button located outside of the bathroom that I have to press to heat the water.

Reese123

Jane1012,

Thanks for the tip. I am going to try it right now.

punisher5112

For the toilet if you can get a hose in to where water comes out and turn water on at other end.

This will force air out.

For shower turn all power off take off front cover and you will see a bleed screw or most likely a plastic one near the start of where water in comes.

If still a problem you may still not have enough pressure or water in tank.

antiskeptic

Reese123 wrote: »

Hi Agusta,

The only thing I really know is that the shower is a Flair, and there's a button located outside of the bathroom that I have to press to heat the water.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that an electric shower would have hot and cold feeds - I'd have thought it would be just cold and the heater heats the cold water as it goes through. Stand to be corrected though.

Let's suppose then that there is a hot and cold feed to the shower and the cold is airlocked (i.e. there is supply in the tank above, but the feed line down to the shower is airlocked)

The following works well on sinks and should work here too.

Turn the heat down to low

Set the hot/cold mixer half way between the full hot and full cold setting.

Take the shower head off the flexible hose and put your finger tight against hose hole to stop any water coming out. Turn on the shower to get water flowing. Since it can't come out the hose, the hot feed will redirect up the cold feed line and fill it (to an extent at least).

Water might start coming out the cistern ballcock at this point, indicating that part of the line being fed from your hot-into-coldfeed. Tie up the ballcock in that event and continue filling the cold shower feed with the hot shower feed for a minute or so.

Switch the water to cold on the shower and let it run. Even if the cold line hasn't been fully filled, siphon effect ought to be enough to get water past the airlock and running again.