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Andrea
 
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Default electric shower doesn't run cold - - advice please!

I wonder if anyone can give me any advice.

I recently moved into a house and found that the electric shower
cycled between hot and cold. Thinking the shower faulty I replaced it
with a Gainsborough 8.5kW shower. Unfortunately, there still seems to
be a problem. The water pressure is fine (as far as electric showers
go) but I seem to be unable to get it to run cold. Even when I run it
on low power and minimum on the dial, it still puts out water which is
slightly too warm for comfort.

Does anyone have any idea what the cause might be? (I am confident I
have connected it the cold water supply, it was a take it out of the
box and wire it in sort of affair).

Thanks.
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shaun
 
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Default electric shower doesn't run cold - - advice please!


"Andrea" wrote in message
om...
I wonder if anyone can give me any advice.

I recently moved into a house and found that the electric shower
cycled between hot and cold. Thinking the shower faulty I replaced it
with a Gainsborough 8.5kW shower. Unfortunately, there still seems to
be a problem. The water pressure is fine (as far as electric showers
go) but I seem to be unable to get it to run cold. Even when I run it
on low power and minimum on the dial, it still puts out water which is
slightly too warm for comfort.

Does anyone have any idea what the cause might be? (I am confident I
have connected it the cold water supply, it was a take it out of the
box and wire it in sort of affair).


Try taking the front off the shower (making sure it's isolated from the
mains), turn the temperature dial (on the now disconnected part) up slightly
and then refit the front. You should now be able to turn the temperature
down a bit more than you could before.


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David W.E. Roberts
 
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Default electric shower doesn't run cold - - advice please!


"Andrea" wrote in message
om...
I wonder if anyone can give me any advice.

I recently moved into a house and found that the electric shower
cycled between hot and cold. Thinking the shower faulty I replaced it
with a Gainsborough 8.5kW shower. Unfortunately, there still seems to
be a problem. The water pressure is fine (as far as electric showers
go) but I seem to be unable to get it to run cold. Even when I run it
on low power and minimum on the dial, it still puts out water which is
slightly too warm for comfort.

Does anyone have any idea what the cause might be? (I am confident I
have connected it the cold water supply, it was a take it out of the
box and wire it in sort of affair).

Thanks.


Just to confirm; most electric showers used to have 4 settings.
High
Low
Cold
Off

If yours has a 'cold' setting have you run it on this for a while and got
really cold water out of it?

How long are you running the shower for?

One likely reason for over temperature water is that it is arriving at the
shower already warm.
Just wondering if you are, after all, connected to the hot water or if the
cold water feed runs alongside a hot pipe and is thus being heated before it
gets to the shower.

Alternatively the water pressure may be too low - cycling between cold and
very hot is usually a sign that the water is overheating, the thermal cutout
is turning the heater off, the shower cools down then starts heating again.

Variations in the water pressure could also do this - is anyone else using
cold water whilst you are showering (including dishwasher or washing
machine) or are you sharing a water supply (flat, etc.) with others?

Finally, did you throw away the old shower?
It could be that it is O.K. and good for a spare or other project.

HTH
Dave R

P.S. check that your mains cold water stop cock is turned fully on in the
house - I was advised to open any tap like this fully then turn it back 1/4
turn to reduce the chance of it jamming open.



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Andrea
 
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Default electric shower doesn't run cold - - advice please!

"shaun" wrote in message ...
Try taking the front off the shower (making sure it's isolated from the
mains), turn the temperature dial (on the now disconnected part) up slightly
and then refit the front. You should now be able to turn the temperature
down a bit more than you could before.


Thanks.

The temperature dial on the front is one of these strange ones which
doesn't have a stop, i.e. turns continuously until it reaches the stop
on the dial in the box itself.
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BigWallop
 
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Default electric shower doesn't run cold - - advice please!

Thanks,

The shower only has three settings:
High
Low
Off

snipped

Hi Andrea,

From your description, I get the feeling we're talking stuck switch here.
Even when the shower is on its LOW setting, you get hot and not warm water ?
Then if you put the shower to the HIGH setting, the temperature doesn't
change ?

If this is the symptoms, then the micro switches in the unit have stuck
closed (electrically welded themselves together). Replaceing them is no big
deal, and is very cheap indeed. Turn off the power to the shower at the
fuse board. Open the front of the unit and have a look inside, you should
see where the selector knob goes onto a spindle and controls two little
micro switches: http://www.otehall.co.uk/products/index.html which make the
heating elements work.

Have a look at the spare parts pages he www.tritonshowers.co.uk for the
bits you need. Or you can go to your nearest electronic store and ask for
two 240 Vac 20 Amp MicroSwitches.

(pronounced two forty volt A.C. twenty amp micro-switches)

Good luck with it.


---
BigWallop

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