Is there such a thing as a decent electric shower?

[Rainbowshit]

The electric shower in the guest bathroom has given up the ghost. DH wants to replace it with another electric shower as he's worried about gas prices.

Are they all shit? Can anyone recommend one that's decently powerful?

Electric showers though are not too bad in the summer as there is less heating needed for the water.

This is one of my worries with getting one off the boiler

Quite right. A "power shower" has a pump to boost the water pressure. That's a two-outlet electric shower. At 9.5 kW output it will be ... adequate. As long as you don't like a particularly powerful shower.

It even says in the description that you may need to use a separate booster pump if your supply pressure isn't up to it or if you want to use gravity feed from a tank.

Same, I had a Mira Sport in a previous house and I loved it and miss it still. I think it's best of both worlds to have an electric shower as well as one run from the boiler, so you still have options if the boiler packs up. Plus it's not as brutal on the water meter, I would have thought.

Our current shower works off the combi boiler and it's shit because our water pressure is shit. So I'd be happy with a Mira electric shower again.

Plus it's not as brutal on the water meter, I would have thought.

The cost of the water is such a tiny proportion of the running cost of a shower that it's not really worth worrying about. The energy to run the thing is the significant issue to consider.

If you need a powerful shower, don't get an electric one. Personally, I'm happy enough with a relatively gentle shower as long as there's enough water to get me wet. The maximum flowrate from an electric shower will be lower than that of one fed from the main hot water system.

If you're concerned about the running cost of a shower, then the cheapest to run will be a mixer shower fed from a tank heated by "free" energy from solar panels (either directly by solar thermal panels, or by an electric heater fed from solar photovoltaics) or from a gas boiler. In either case, the lowest running cost will obviously be achieved by using a lower flowrate, but this will depend on your ability to be careful with usage. Be cautious if you share a house with others who are less cautious than you about energy use!

Then again, an electric shower can give an adequate shower that many people will be content with, and the lower maximum flowrate may mean the running cost in practice will not be significantly higher than that of a gas mixer shower. As others have said, an advantage is that you will still have a usable shower (and a backup source of hot water for other purposes) if your boiler fails or there's an issue with the gas supply. This was the main reason we had an electric shower as an "extra" in a downstairs shower room. Some of them aren't quite as ugly as the old white plastic boxes. We went for a Mira Azora dual outlet - www.plumbworld.co.uk/mira-azora-dual-glass-electric-shower-drencher-handset-98kw-65-1262232

Depends whether you are on a combi boiler or system boiler.

System boilers nearly always have immersion heater backup, because the cost of adding one into the cylinder is pretty small compared with the cost of a gas boiler.

Always worth checking your immersion heater is in good shape from time to time. Mine was very helpful when the gas boiler packed up and I had to wait for 2 weeks to get it replaced.

That's an electric shower not a power shower.

Electric shower - heats cold water.

Power shower - mixes cold and (already!) hot water. Uses electricity for the pump but does not heat the water.

Do not confuse the two!

And yes you can have electric showers with pumps, but (a) this does NOT make it a power shower (b) cold water pressure is rarely the limiting factor when it comes to an electric shower.

@CasperGutman

The cost of the water is such a tiny proportion of the running cost of a shower that it's not really worth worrying about. The energy to run the thing is the significant issue to consider.

It's not "tiny proportion" actually it's similar

, if it's 10 litres a minute that would be getting on for 2 pounds an hour at 3 pounds a cubic metre, depending on your water company

Your boiler would use up to 24kw depending on the season so that's about 2-3 pounds an hour in winter and half that in summer.

So the water cost would be the same as the gas cost across the summer months

Sorry posted too soon and I was going to say in winter the water would be a third or so of the cost.

This is all assuming metered of course, as there's no incremental cost for non metered.

They cost double what a regular shower costs to run:
www.idealhome.co.uk/house-manual/money-matters/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-a-shower

Unless you have solar panels or a wind turbine generating electricity, it’s cheaper not to have an electric shower that costs 7p a minute to run.

You're quite right. Based on our recent bills a one hour shower with a 10kW electric shower at 10 litres per minute would cost £2.16 for the water and £3.18 for the electricity. The water is a much bigger part of the cost than I'd appreciated. Thanks!

I don't think you'll get anything like 10 litres per minute though from a 10kw shower. You're asking it to raise incoming water from about 10°Cou'll be lucky to get 5 at this time of year.

That post went wrong! Anyway you'll get about 5 litres a minute I reckon

Quite true - just trying some simple numbers. Even at 5 litres per minute the cost of the water will be £1.08 vs £3.18 for the electricity, so the water cost is >25% of the total. Not as negligible as I'd guessed!

It's not that bad, you just need to run a hot pipe from somewhere in the bathroom to the shower valve.