DIYbanter - View Single Post - electric cold-feed showers.

wrote:
B&Q currently have a 9.5 Kw Gainsborough at =A364.98
or a 10.5 KW Gainsborough at =A389.00. Are either of these any good
or
should I avoid them like the plague ?

I had no end of grief with a Heatrae Sadia, so I replaced it with a
Gainsborough on special offer from a shed. *Then* I found out that
Gainsboroughs are yesteryear's Heatrae Sadia designs with the casing
tarted up and the price dropped to fit on the shelf in a shed.

Within the first year that Gainsborough shower needed a new solenoid
valve, the shower head was too restrictive (replaced it with a French
one) and it developed a dangerous fault in that one of the crimps of
the heater connections was badly made and overheated, which heated the
hefty copper cable, which in turn nearly melted through the top of the
casing. Gainsborough flat out refused to supply me a spare and instead
sent me a fitter who did the job FOC, who mentioned that he saw this
fault a lot, and who was under instructions to take the old part away
with him. If that doesn't reek of a product liability problem I don't
know what does. The solenoid valve is getting noisy again, btw.
Short answer to your question: Avoid.