Two bathrooms next to each other, should I keep one electric shower?

[BoyMum100]

I moved into a 4 bed detached house with two bathrooms next to each other. We have decided to keep this layout as it will be useful when the children are older. We are currently looking at getting a new combi boiler, our current immersion boiler, despite only being 6 years old is not powerful enough to heat all the radiators and we had to turn radiators off in certain rooms over winter, which wasn't ideal.

We currently have a mains shower and an electric shower. The electric shower has annoyingly broken and I'm wondering whether to replace or have two mains showers. I know electric can be a godsend if the boiler breaks down but I've never used a particularly strong one. As we are getting a new boiler we can make sure we have enough power for two mains showers, apparently we have great water pressure. What should I do?

Yes. On the odd occasion the boiler is playing up an electric shower is a lifesaver. They're not as powerful but they do the job.

Honestly, I’d keep the immersion heater with a non combi boiler and find out why your current boiler isn’t heating the house. We’ve had the gas go off couple of times while we’ve lived here and still being able to have a hot shower was a god send. We had very jealous neighbours!

No. Get two plumbed in showers, the water pressure will be better. You could put a unvented hot water cylinder in somewhere if you want redundancy. They come with heating elementa so can heat water independently if needed.

Always one electric and one thermostatic shower. If the heating fails, you need to be able to have a hot shower.

As you've said you have great water pressure, I'd get an electric. We used to live in a property where the (oil, in our case) boiler was constantly cutting out and having that electric shower as a backup meant we could fill the bath with hot water for washing up, bathing the baby etc.

Keep an electric shower. You can always draw hot water from it if you have boiler issues.

Another vote for both.
I'd also agree with @PersephoneParlormaid about finding the problem with the current boiler. When a combi boiler breaks down you are stuffed for heating and hot water.
Do you know for sure that a combi would solve the problem? Is there any possibility you might get solar panels because if you did you'd want to be able to heat water with them.

We actually had an immersion heater put back in very useful when our boiler was condemned and we had to have a new one.

Interesting replies to this thread.

We are about to move and the house we are buying has a thermo shower run from the boiler. We are wanting to put an en-suite in and DH and I have been having the debate as to whether we get another thermo shower or if we go for an electric one in the en-suite.

I am for an electric shower, for the reasons mentioned above, and he is against.

I may show him this thread. 😂

Depends on how hard your water is. We live in a very hard water area, it kills electric showers really quickly.

The second shower is normally electric because a combi boiler can't supply enough hot water to run 2 showers with a decent flow. Showers from a gas boiler are cheaper to run because gas is cheaper than electric. If you want 2 showers boiler fed, you either need a old fashioned gravity system, with a hot water tank ( which can also have an electric immersion installed in it, as a back up) with a pump so you get decent pressure for the shower(s), or an unvented tank, which will provide mains pressure hot water, but does need a specialist installer and annual checking by suitably qualified person

Thanks all. So the current boiler is simply not powerful enough to supply all of our radiators. I don't want another winter with certain cold rooms. The tank is quite old too and would need replacing soon, coupled with the fact I'm fed up with not having constant hot water, a combi seems the best option.

It seems most people are team electric, although we do live in a very hard water area.

Get a water softener

As you've already got space for the tank, I would be tempted to go for an unvented system, loads of hot water at good pressure. Prof Google tells me that you can have an electric immersion fitted as a backup. The only downside is that because it's a pressure vessel it does need to be safety checked every year.I would suggest getting a recommended plumber/installer to come and investigate why your existing system isn't working properly, get him/her to calculate what size radiators you need and how big the boiler needs to be.There is no point changing the boiler if the radiators and pipes are blocked with years of sludge, or the lockshield valves are set so a couple of rooms get all the heat.

The only thing with our Combi boiler is filling up the bath is slower but it's a D bath the previous owners put in.

I use the electric shower in the en suite post hip surgery because the other one is over the bath and I couldn't lift my leg over.

OK so I dont know what your house family and budget are like but based on my experience

1. Whatever you do get a water softener
2. How good is your house insulation? That would be the first thing I would look at if the house is cold in winter. I would also get the heating system checked, do all the thermostatic valves work, any air locks etc
3. As others say if the Combi goes down you are well and truly stuffed so I would retain an electric shower. You will need a very big combi to power two showers
4. My wife and I have two teenagers and get by fine with just one shower in the downstairs wet room. We do have an over bath electric shower upstairs if needed but it has hardly been used.
5. We have a 'heat store' ie a vented tank, there is then a coil which the mains water flows through & is heated, much less exciting than an unvented tank. The heat store is heated by solar panels the wood burner & a small gas boiler if needed
6. Read the runes. The move is away from gas - and it will be enforcedbut what you are doing is looking at setting up a system that will only run on gas. You need to 'future proof' it. So what about a tanked system with solar hot water topped up by gas/electric/heat pump etc? Improving your insulation? Heat Pump etc etc?

Electric showers, even the most powerful, are rubbish compared to ones supplied from a boiler or tank. They're even worse in winter when the water is colder and the shower can't heat the water quickly enough.

Why have crap showers every day just on the offchance that your (new) boiler might not work at some unspecified point in the future? Especially when an immersion is an option.

Thanks all. We are looking at a 40kw combi to power the house. We are adding a water softer. We did look at adding a heat pump but it's not cost effective enough for us and the unit suggested by octopus would be enormous.

We have poor insulation, it's an early 1960s house so that's something we will look at. We have also been researching solar panels with a battery for sometime in the future, as we realise we need to stop being so reliant on gas! So that's another reason for electric shower!

We created a second ensuite and deliberately chose an electric shower. Our combi boiler is fine but when it does break down, its usually 5 days waiting for parts. I can deal with no heater but I can't do without my shower!
We did also install a water softener as our water is extremely hard. The shower is a Mira one and it works well. I'm glad to have it as a back up

Op thanks for that information

I installed polystyrene bead insulation and improved the loft insulation which makes a massive difference and wasn't that expensive

We have one electric shower and it's been a complete life saver!
Our heating is oil fired and we haven't been able to afford to fill up the oil tank since the war in Iran started but it's been fine because we don't need the heating on and we have the electric shower downstairs.