Electric shower? Or spend a lot of £ sorting a problem

[Hithere1981]

The issue is whether I go with an electric shower (happy to pay for a fantastic one. Any recommendations?)

Vs

At least 4 days labour
Pulling up hall way floor
All to get a feed through to the new bathroom (long story won’t bore you with why).

I’ve never had electric showers so not sure if decent or whether I should spend at least £1500 extra to permit a normal shower being installed.

Thanks

an electric shower gives a weedy trickle of water, especially in winter when it will be cooler.

Are you in a flat with no access to the space above the ceiling?

Have you got a hot-water cylinder? What colour?

p.s.

there is no such thing as a fantastic electric shower.

WHY are they pulling up the flor? Can you not have a shower that feeds off the bath tap piping?

Grrentulips - won’t bore you. Needs to be done

Piglet - yes flag. No space.
Aqualisa quartz 10.5 gets very good reviews?

I've found this to be reasonably good

www.diy.com/departments/mira-azora-9-8kw-electric-shower-frosted-glass/907831_BQ.prd

OP, we also never had an electric shower, but this new house we have has only "electric" showers, it took us a while to realise only one was a real electric shower, which heats water as it goes through (horrible weak water pressure if you want it warm, not freezing cold).
The other one worked from the electric unit on the wall but turned out to get its water from the hot tank, so I've eventually worked out that it's what must be a power shower (good water pressure)
Unfortunately it was a late 80s shower(judging by the decor of that bathroom) and it was only working sporadically and then failed, now have to use the horrible electric one in the on-suite until we rip out and change the whole family bathroom. I like the idea of not depending on electricity when having a shower, however with weak water pressure in the entire house (20s house, old lead pipes) I don't think we'll be able to have a good shower without installing a new power shower too.

Basically OP, I'd go for getting hot water supply because in my limited experience (in this house and staying at friends/holiday places) with electric showers they all were dismal. Plus require special power cables and fuses being run separately to the fuse board 😐
However no guarantee you'd get a good gravity fed shower, you might still need to apply electric power to get a decent shower.

Unless you have a three phase supply, the biggest shower you can get is around 11kw. The smallest standard Combi is double that.
Even with a water saving shower head you would be need 16+KW for warm enough.
If you really need to use electric, an electric megaflow would work or a pumped open vented system if you have space.
Another option is to repurpose the cold feed to the shower as the hot single feed, and set the Combi to 40c, but it depends if you need any other cold supply.

We were dubious, but went for an Aqualisa quartz 10.5 W in the downstairs bathroom for various reasons, mainly issues with bringing a supply from the combi. We only use it occasionally but it's great, we get no complaints from visitors and if it saves £££ I'd say give it a try. I usually hate electric showers. But this one is fine. It's quiet, the flow is good and it looks nice. Much better than any electric shower I ever used in the past.

Baffled by those saying how bad electric is. Perhaps historically bad but seems there’s been significant developments in recent times.

Reading the Which guide to BestBuys and literally hours reading reviews, this one is waved about www.plumbworld.co.uk/aqualisa-quartz-electric-19378-20142?utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=GB&utm_campaign=GoogleBase&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4bSz246w2QIVK7vtCh117wplEAQYAiABEgL3nfD_BwE

I like having an electric shower. If the gas boiler ever breaks down, which it has a couple of times, you've still got a hot water source.

This is the one I've got:

www.ebay.co.uk/i/361997339977?chn=ps&adgroupid=48716125379&rlsatarget=pla-381910303141&abcId=1129946&adtype=pla&merchantid=7394664&poi=&googleloc=1006656&device=c&campaignid=974960635&crdt=0

We've got Mira electric showers in both bathrooms upstairs - they are fab and we've never had issues with them. Ours are the Mira Sport versions that have a boost button and there is an air pipe through the water pipe to add to the flow but it's not often needed tbh especially in the summer when you have them on cooler. They last around 6/7 years on average but we have got very hard water. Can't recommend them highly enough.

A typical modern combi boiler has about 35kW of power to heat the hot water, and can deliver about 14 litres per minute.

A typical electric shower has less than one-third the power so can deliver less than one-third the hot water.

As Scotty used to say, ye cannae argue with the laws of physics.

An unvented cylinder can deliver even more hot flow, subject to your plumbing, and it need not be cooler in winter.

Electric showers are often considered adequate by people who have not experienced powerful showers.

btw energy from electricity currently costs about 4.4 times as much as energy from gas, so your electric shower will still cost more to run than the gas boiler delivering three times as much hot water (sad face)

Electric showers are often considered adequate by people who have not experienced powerful showers. Not in my case. I've had some very painful power showers.

that might be pressure, rather than flow.

I’m with Jane Eyre we’ve got a Mira Sport shower and it does the job for us.