Electric and mixer shower in same cubicle?

[WineWithAView]

So, I'm re-doing my bathroom. House currently has an electric shower. My immediate thought was that I didn't like electric showers, but it's a decent shower and when my boiler broke last winter, we could still have hot showers whilst waiting for the boiler to be fixed. And this made me change my mind about keeping the electric shower...just in case...

In an ideal world, I'd have two showers, one electric and the other a mixer off the combi boiler. Just to cover all eventualities. But this is unlikely to happen in this house, so I was wondering whether it was possible to have an electric shower AND a mixer shower (not running at the same time) in the same shower cubicle?

In my old house I had a large rain head shower and a small hand-held shower that was attached to the shower wall about shoulder height (this was mainly used for my DC when he was smaller and also used for cleaning the shower) so I suppose looks-wise, I would have a proper shower head with the electric shower and then something like a hand held attachment for the mixer shower.

Is this possible? I'm honestly not an all doom and gloom type of person, but if there were ever power cuts, gas supply issues, etc.etc. (which seem an increasingly likely possibility these days), then I'm thinking at least I can have a hot shower whilst the world is falling apart around me...

I'm pretty sure a gas boiler won't work without electricity!

Is the mains shower pumped, as that will be electric.

Yes, we have this set, up it was there when we moved in, we have since also put a ‘double shower’ in one of the upstairs bathroom. Great idea!

Oh! So if the electric goes, then the gas boiler doesn't work anyway??

I currently have a system boiler, but will be changing it to a combi.

This is good to know Oceangirl, thank you! (Although it seems my reasoning for wanting to do it is a bit flawed...)

We have a combi boiler fed shower in main bathroom and in case the boiler ever broke, an electric shower in the en-suite.

We’ve since added a rainfall/deluge ceiling mounted shower run off the boiler to the en-suite and tbh we use the deluge head all the time there.

What facilitated the en-suite work was that there was hot n cold pipes in the loft put in at the time when the main bathroom was renovated which we could tap into to feed the en-suite deluge shower.

In both rooms we used Mira ‘digital’ showers to do the mixing/temperature setting.

Ah that's interesting, thanks tanstaafl.

No en-suites here but I did look into having a shower installed in the downstairs toilet, and I would have had that shower run off the boiler, but its a concrete floor downstairs so the plumber I talked to about it said it wasn't possible.

But anyway, if the boiler fed shower would be cold if the electric was off, then it's not the clever back up plan I thought it was. 😅

Although, I imagine there must be a way around the concrete floor issue? A step up to the shower or similar?

I've always kept one electric shower in this house (3 bathrooms)
It's true if the electricity supply to the house goes then neither shower will work. But it's more likely that some part inside the boiler will go and you will have electricity but no boiler.
If the electricity supply goes then normal life might get disrupted as no lights, no hairdryer, no cooked food etc so the lack of a shower won't really matter. Can't go to work if hair a state and no coffee, no way.
But if the boiler goes then everything else works as usual.
I also keep a calor gas fire out in the shed, always keep a gas hob and if I didn't then I'd keep a single ring camping stove, and an actual stove top kettle. I'm a right prepper.

If you can bring the water pipes into the bathroom just above the concrete floor then plumber could build a frame to sit the shower tray onto. We have one about 4 inches high.

If you have a pressurised hot water system then you can fit an electric heating element which means you can have hot water from all your taps of the gas stops working.

All good points trulyunruly, thank you! And also thanks for the tip re raising a shower on a frame. There are already pipes above the fllor for the sink and toilet so I assume a shower could be run off those? Although, the space is good for either a utility room or a bathroom...not both...and I'm leaning towards a utility room now.

Oh interesting, thanks Geneticsbunny.

If you have any shower pipe runs which are not used often, you should run them once a week anyway.
The reason is that the bacteria which causes legionnaires disease breeds in still water, then when you eventually run the shower they are emitted as airborne aerosol which you breathe in and risk infection (variety of pneumonia).
This isn't a problem if you run the shower once a week. But if you rarely used it and didn't do that you would be at risk.
So, no comment on whether two showers in case of boiler faults is a good idea or not, but if you do it, it's good to know. Ditto for little used guest bathrooms etc

Very good to know Archetypal. And not something that would have crossed my mind, so thank you.

Electric is a backup for gas but gas is not a backup for electric because your boiler needs electric to work.

The easiest and cheapest way to back up gas is with an immersion heater in a system boiler (system with water tank).

This is an electric heater like a kettle element that goes inside the hot water tank. Most people do not know they have them, but the majority of hot water tanks have them installed. There will be a switch normally close to the hot water tank that operates it. Unfortunately because they are not used often they do not always work (they get furred up by limescale). In an emergency you can turn on the heater to get yourself a tank of hot water at about 4x the price of gas. which is why people only use them in an emergency.

Now the bad news - if you switch to the combi boiler from the system boiler you will lose the hot water tank. So you lose the immersion heater back up. In that case having an electric shower backup might be a wise idea.