Electric Showers - Good or Bad ??

[StevePlumber]

Always asked about them through my job - Well first of all they will at most pump out 4 litres a minute - to my mind thats about adequate. Imagine the amount of power going through the shower to warm up 4 litres instantly - Wear and tear on the unit, switches and fuses. To get more than 4 litres per minute will require stupidly larger electric cable & switches/ fuses. It is no wonder they fail usually around two years ! Best solution that's always been around is a bar shower connected to your combi boiler or if you have a hot water cylinder then a quality pump and bar shower definitely the way to go. Big difference between 3 or 4 litres per minute to around a stonking 10 litres from a bar shower ! These alternatives are more expensive however they pay for themselves over time because you are not swapping them every 2 years. Search Bogs & Taps for more information and pricing structures.

My electric shower is at least 5 or 6 years old so must be quite a geriatric then!

Ha Ha - I sometimes replace electric showers 20 years old - that's when they made em good and proper using copper heating cans and decent internal parts ! Todays showers have all the components hooked together using rubber o rings and plastic heater cans - Throw away society remember

Depends on what your water hardness is like. We have to keep replacing the tiny 'boiler' in our shower and the shower heads every four years.
But the shower itself is over 20 years old.
We live in a VERY hard water area. Kettles get furred up in less than a week!

We don't have hard water here in Birmingham - People here think they do - bless, noooo fur in our kettles.