Recommendation for new shower

billgibney

Hi at the moment I have a Mira isle shower which is fed by cold water from the mains. It was ok but it was not used everyday as we he have a far better one downstairs.

In my area they have put hundreds of houses up in the last three years so the pressure is gone crap, the shower still works but it's not a good one.

I'd like to replace the Mira as cheaply as possible.

The water for the Mira comes from a spur from the mains feeding the attic tank.

I'll measure the flow rate from the Mira and post it

(EDIT)

I measured the flow rate

With the shower turned to low and No1, basically luke warm it gave just over 5 litres a minute with the shower head off and half that with the head on so I might try changing the shower head first.

I know it's not limescale on the head btw

On the highest and hottest setting it gave 2.5 litres with the head off and 1.5 with it on.

billgibney

I was thinking of getting a wider bore hose and a smaller showerhead,

Would that do any good?

John.G

You need 5.5LPM to get 40C showering temp at full power, very doubtfull if you can achieve that with a bigger hose/shower head IMO, you should just about be able to run on 1/2 power at the moment at 2.5LPM. You could consider installing a 9.0KW pumped electric shower fed from the CWST.

billgibney

Thanks for the answer

Is there any showers with a pump that can run from the mains? I don't want to take down tiles

John.G

This one maybe but I've never seen any proper pump curves for it, maybe someone on here is using one?.

https://showerpowerbooster.co.uk/ask-alan/

John.G

Found a bit of info on that above pump, it will give a boost of only 0.32bar at 5.0LPM, no good IMO for you.

A Grundfos Home Booster model UPA 15-120 will give a boost of 1.2bar at 8.0 LPM and should solve your problem, these pumps are not cheap, probably around €250.

You could also consider installing the portriat version of the Triton T90SR, these are a pumped shower with their own internal pump and should/must be fed from the CWSC but you could feed it from the mains via a pressure reducing valve (PRV) set to 0.5/1.0bar BUT this invalidates the warranty, Sleeper12 might advise or if he has seen the above.

Sleeper12

I have installed Triton T90 showers to the mains using a PRV without issue before. It's not something I would usually suggest but sometimes your options are very limited.

I've never used mains booster pumps because as John said they are expensive. Salamander do one & it's close to €500. Pretty sure Stuart Turner has one too. They will work very well but expensive

billgibney

Thanks for all the suggestions,

I think I might go for the prv option

There's great access to the pipework

I'll post how it turned out

billgibney

Why the portrait version of the t90sr

I haven't seen in in the shops

John.G

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122527860#Comment_122527860

Only because it might be easier to install as your existing one is portrait type?, I couldn't find any reference to it but Sleeper12 did say there was one (portrait) with the same silent running (SR) motor. You shoud also look at getting a "drop tight" PRV (one that maintains the set pressure when no demand), also that its setting can be reduced to 0.5 to 1.0bar, Caleffi series 535 & 536 are drop tight but I don't know if the setting can be reduced to 1.0bar, I'll email them later.

John.G

Couldn't contact them, anyway, maybe go for a 3/4 ins because the PRV will be wide open most of the time because of the very low upstream (mains) pressure and you don't want the pump to cavitate due to pressure drop through the PRV, also ensure you get one with a downstream pressure gauge.

Sleeper12

This is the one John has been talking about. Triton wholesale this for €15 or €20 more than the T90sr. It should be €300 to €350 retail. If you ring different trade counters like Heatmerchants, Chadwicks etc asking for a price you should find one under €350

https://www.tritonshowers.ie/t900psr-pumped-electric-shower

billgibney

Hi I just back from holidays and planned to get the t90sr in the next week or so, but I was talking to a neighbour with a similar problem and he said why don't I just switch the current shower (Mira isle) to the tank supply. It would save buying and fitting a new shower, I'd just have to connect the pipe to the feed from the tank, they're beside each other

Could this be done? The drop is about 6 1/2 foot so I'd imagine it would give me more than the 5 lts per minute I'm getting now.

(Edit)

Just used chatgpt to calculate flow and it said 25 litres per minute!

6ft drop 1/2 pipe

Any thoughts?

billgibney

So I ordered this from amazon to test the tap at the side of the house.

This should tell me the real pressure coming into the house

I double checked the filter on the Mira and while I had the filter off I measured the water into a jug for 6 seconds ( I had the daughter up in the attic turning off the stop valve for 6 seconds by the stopwatch on her phone. Did it twice

It filled to 1100mls in 6 seconds so that's 11 litres per minute going into the shower

Hopefully this will give a bit of clarity

Sleeper12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122610732#Comment_122610732

The attic tank would need to be 3 or 4 floors above the mains fed shower to function correctly connected to the tank. You get roughly 1/4 bar per floor.