Shower problems in rental apartment

adraigh

Hi there,

We moved into an apartment mid-Nov 2020 (rental).

It has been clear from when we moved in that there are problems with the shower (there is only one shower in the apartment).

No matter what way we set the shower, the max amount of hot water we get is 8 mins of medium pressure.

The landlord has done their best - v responsive and has organised a heating company to send out several plumbers to try fix the problem. They've tried various things. So far, nothing has worked. It's been three months.

However I get the feeling that in order to fix this issue, a fair bit of money will have to spent by them, tiled will have to be removed etc, and I'm sensing reluctance to spend this money.

Just wondering how far I should push it -- do you think 8 mins of hot water is acceptable for a rental? After that, we need to let the water heat up again for at least 30 mins to get a few more mins of hot water.

The shower is about 30 years old but a new pump was installed just before we moved in, which I guess indicates perhaps there was some issue with the shower prior to our moving in.

If the landlord refuses to invest and getting it properly fixed, have we grounds to force them? Not sure what the official rules are around this sort of thing.
Or would it be acceptable for us to try to negotiate the rent down?

Many thanks - just to reiterate, our landlord is v nice and is doing their best.

Xterminator

So, my reading of the situation, it is working. Perhaps not to your desired specification- but its not broken.

Landlord can show it has been serviced and is working.

B.A._Baracus

The shower is working. Are you sure you want to make a deal out of this?

Like if you are paying a pretty penny for the rent then yeah it would be nice to have a shower that works right instead of hanging around for it to get going again.

But if the rent is reasonable do you really want to make this a thing?
You are only in the place 3 months. Then you'll be asking to reduce the rent. If I was the landlord I would be thinking "could have a headache of a person here" - better to be on good terms than annoying a LL.

Even if he does totally fix it (costly as you say) he could up the rent after the first year. Get it back.

How long are you planning on staying there? If you only plan on doing so for a year or two you could easily bide your time. It's only an inefficient shower not a leaky roof.

TheChizler

If your hot water tank only holds 8 minutes worth of hot water for a power shower then that's all you're going to get unfortunately. How big is the tank? Does it get hot at the bottom? Do you use the immersion to heat the water or a boiler? If it's all working correctly then short of installing a bigger tank there's not much the landlord can do. They've spent money on having plumbers in so they're trying to fix it. What did they do? I'd be looking at running the pump on a lower setting and getting a different spray head.

spaceHopper

How is the water heated, from the boiler (most cost effective) or by the electric immersion?

If it's the immersion, have you got it set to bath to fully heat the water. It sink element will heat enough for one short shower. The element only heats the top of the hot water cylinder. Could the bath element be blown?

Can you turn down the pump so that you don't run through all the hot water?
Also check the thermostat on the immersion is not set to low and cutting out after a shot while.

If it's by the boiler check the water temperature after the boiler has been run and if it's running long enough. Is the boiler temperature set correctly, we can set ours to heat the water it uses to heat house had HW to between 60 and 80 is deger, 68 seems about right.

MacDanger

I think the requirement is that the shower be "in good working order". It's debatable whether a shower that runs for a 8 minutes in a property for 2 people is considered good working order or not. It's probably not worth even having that debate. It sounds like the LL is decent enough but that's not much good to you if both of you can't have a proper shower in your apt

If I were you and unless you can't afford it financially, I'd look for somewhere else to live, life is too short to live in accommodation with a crappy shower.

cruizer101

More details on how the water is heated would be helpful.

A power shower can get through 15l/min, thats 120l in 8 minutes. Now that won't be fully from the hot water tank, you will be mixing it somewhat. But say it is 60% hot 40% cold, thats still 72 litres which could easily be the size of a small hot water cylinder.

You could get a shower head that reduces the flow rate, this was one I had purchased https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B017N88TEU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 although for different purpose, but it will reduce the flow rate.

JimmyVik

You can buy variable rate shower heads.
I only get about 8 mins of shower on full flow.
Now I like a longer shower than that so i stick it on lower flow rate and i get about 20 mins out of a tank.
Thats about right for me.