Tell me your boiler/shower combinations

[churchmouse84]

We are redoing our bathrooms.

We currently have a standard boiler with hot water tank and two electric showers. This is a bit pointless as we are heating water for no reason.

I want a really really nice shower which I've been told means not an electric one.

Someone has told us a really powerful shower will be disastrous with a hot water tank as we'll always be running out of water.

Someone else has told us to swap our boiler (it's 10 years old) for a combi boiler and have power showers

Someone else has told us combi boilers are rubbish if you have two showers at the same time.

What would you do?

what colour is your cylinder, and how big?

You can't have a power shower with a combi boiler, apparently because combi boilers run at mains pressure anyway (so you wouldn't be gaining anything I suppose).
We have got a power shower and hot water tank, and I can't say we ever run out of hot water, but of course, if your family like very long showers this might be a problem. You could always reduce the amount of time your water is heating for, if you have too much. Ours is only on (via boiler) for one and a half hours a day.

Combi boilers won’t supply hot water at mains pressure. Heat has to transfer from the heat exchanger to the flowing water and if the water is moving through too quickly it won’t heat up enough. A bigger combi should give higher hotwater flow than a smaller one at the expense of efficiency.

A system boiler and an invented hotwater cylinder will give main pressure hot and cold water to all taps and showers. If your starting from scratch want to have two showers, a shower and a bath, a shower and a hot kitchen tap on the go, or even central heating and a shower at the same time, this is what I would go for over a combi.

If you going to keep your existing heating soloution, PigletJohn should be able able to advise on what shower to get.

Ooh I knew this was the place to come.

Sounds like replacing the boiler is not really worth it.

We could keep one electric shower as a backup, then one mains shower.

We have a combi bolier with a power shower and then a high powered electric shower in our en-suite. that way both showers can be in use at the same time.