Had a shower replaced due to not running hot, now new one is fitted but still not heating. Should I pay?

Posted 21st Jan 2023

Had a new shower fitted, costs around £500, due to the fitters diagnosing the old one faulty for not heating water adequately.
But the replacement has the same issue, now I am told by the same people that I have to upgrade my electrics.

Am I being led down the garden path by them? Did they misdiagnose? I havent paid for the shower yet, as I suspect they fitted it unduly.

Post

Share with WhatsApp

Share with Messenger

Sports & Outdoors Ask Running Heating Fitness & Running Energy, Heating & Gas

New Comment

15 Comments

sorted by

21st Jan
I don't quite understand the "upgrade electrics" suggestion by the installation professional.

If the existing shower is rated at say 10kW and currently (sic) pulls that amount of power without tripping the supply when attempting to heat the water, how will upgrading the electrics add any additional heating power to the existing device?
21st Jan
My thoughts exactly, this is nothing to do with electricity supply. Sounds like the shower heater isn't powerful enough for the extreme temperatures this time of year. That was probably the problem with the old one that was removed. (edited)
21st Jan
Have you had any water pressure issues recently? At Christmas when we had the cold snap there was a few leaks down the road which in turn affected our water pressure for about 10 days. This issue prevented the electric shower from heating the water. I was think we'd need to get a replacement until we noticed neibours had same issue.
21st Jan
I think it's the fact that the water entering the property is a lot colder than normal so the shower has to work a lot harder to get it up to temp.
If you have a lower kw shower then there is simply not enough power to warm up the freezing water.
If water pressure was low due to leaks then you would have a reduced flow rate but with warmer water because it's in the shower tank for longer.
21st Jan
I'm assuming it's an electric shower unit if you're talking about upgrading electrics? I'd start by asking them how they diagnosed it to be a faulty shower unit in the first place.

Its probably in the contract wording on the job about incorrect diagnosis. I will say though that diagnosing faults on anything (cars, plumbing, electrics etc.) can be hard and often you need to rule something out before moving to the next issue, it's just a shame they didn't test an alternative shower first to see.

It's also possible the new shower unit is faulty? I've seen it happen before on other items that they are DOA.

Also £500 sounds expensive for a straight swap out of a shower unit but I've no idea on the model you bought or work you had carried out so £500 could be correct.
21st Jan
did the old shower ever work properly (the way you want) and therefore stopped working? was water flowing but not heating properly when it wasn't working?

is water flowing through the new shower? is the water heating? or what is it doing?

if the old one worked before, and the new one works but doesn't heat right, i doubt it would be the electric supply as it should either work or not work. my shower has it's own fuse on the fusebox so if i run it too long or too hot it sometimes cuts out and you press the fuse button to make it work again. is yours on a system like that?

was it plumbers you got out to install it?
21st Jan
So they say you should upgrade the electrics?

In that case did you ask them why they fitted & left you with a dangerous electrically overloaded shower?

Tell them to jog on & take them to court
21st Jan
to be fair to the tradesman, the first thing to do is to replace the shower as that is almost often the case with electric shower. so they haven't identified the problem unduly as they couldn't have done anything else. now that they have fitted a new shower and it still doesn't work then that dismisses the shower as the fault.

not sure about their diagnose of the electrics solving the problem. it could be a water pressure problem or electrics but do you get high pressure out of the shower?
21st Jan
[deleted]
21st Jan
i think they have installed a new shower and it still doesn't work, so they think the cable is not powerful enough to supply the kw rated shower. first question would be whether the new shower is similar kw rating to the old one as they shouldn't have replaced a more powerful one without inspecting the electrics.

a low cable will mean the cable burns rather than the shower won't work so it is more a fire issue, or at least you will get tripping at the consumer unit or shower isolation switch. the OP would need to provide more details and we need to know if the shower had ever worked.
21st Jan
Maybe relates to this https://www.plumbworld.co.uk/electric-showers-explained-infopage#:~:text=The%20electrical%20connections%20to%20an,be%20rated%20above%2060%20amps.
21st Jan
That page simply indicates the minimum supply requirements for various shower power ratings.
It doesn't explain how an upgrade to the existing electrics will increase the water temperature on the fitted replacement shower.