Showers - digital or old school?

[Alittleconcerned1980]

Renovating the bathroom. I am prepared to spend quite a bit on the shower as I need it to last and be very robust. Single mum, two young children, and I want this shower to be working perfectly in 10 years time!

I don’t have time to be dealing with repairs etc if the digital goes wrong. My inclination is always old school BUT I have read wonderful reviews about digital.

Thoughts? Manual adjustment or digital?

And any specific recommendations within the aqualisa range (I love aqualisa on account that piglet recommended it to me!)

My only comment would be the more complicate something is, the more likely it will fail as there are more components and each will have their own Mean Time Between Failure.

A third option is a thermostatic mixer which balances your hot and cold water to control the temperature. A good option if you have a boiler and want to have control without the extra expense of electrically heating water.

Yes the thermostatic mixer is what I will go for. I regard that as old school though.

We've had two (over bath) Aqualisa showers for over 30 years.

No complaints, no problems, except having to replace the hoses once during that time. But that wasn't really a problem, either.

BIL has just had a thermostatic system put in and it's gorgeous. The temperature control is spot on.

My experience has been that pretty much any electric shower breaks within a relatively short time.

We have been living in our house for 14 years, and both showers (installed when the house was built in 1996) are still going strong. They are Grohe brand (I think)

I love my Thermostatic shower. It's what I miss most when I am away from home!

I think ours are thermostatic BTW. I have never heard of the term before, but the water temperature is maintained throughout use. They are both power showers, and when I use MIL's electric shower it seems so weedy in comparison.

I would also have one with a removable shower head so that you can direct the shower to different areas. I prefer to wash my hair with my head forward and really hate washing it under a fixed shower head as I get water/shampoo in my eyes and ears.

Never heard of a thermostat?

An electric shower costs £100 max and is independent of the boiler. Get the wiring for a good one, 10kw, and regard it as a consumable.

I think there is some confusion on this thread. Digital showers aren't necessarily "electric" showers. Digital generally just refers to the control -they're available for all types of hot water system.

We have a Triton Digital which we've had for just over seven years without issue. It's a through-the-ceiling rain head and is ideal for us as it's an over-bath in a small bathroom so the small controller is great, no big taps. The controller takes two double A batteries that we've replaced twice in the time we have it. Because we have a combi boiler we can't get the fancy functions (different types of water flow etc) but we have friends with those kinds of digital showers and they are impressive.

I understand the concern about breakdown, but our experience has been good. We were told that fixing them usually means just replacing either the controller or the box bit in the loft. The former you can do yourself, the latter is an easy job for a plumber.

We're about to move and I'd definitely look at getting another digital when we re-do our new bathrooms.

"Never heard of a thermostat?"

Of course I have . I haven't heard of a shower described as a thermostatic shower before, that's all.

We have standard built in showers with overhead rain head in three bathrooms and a shower column in another. Two have a side smaller shower head on a flexible hose for the hair wash scenario . All have conventional mixer controls. I don’t see the advantage of digital but no doubt a good make would be reliable. We rarely change the thermostat setting because it’s totally reliable on the showers we have in this house. We do switch between overhead and the smaller hand shower though and that’s easy. Never had a problem with any shower in 20 years!

LoniceraJaponica

I read it that the poster was saying they’ve never heare the term before. Not directed at you.

No way electric shower. And an electric shower is not what I was referring to when I said thermostatic.