I moved into this house 2 days ago and found the shower pressure is quite low.
The shower system is electric heated. If I turn the knob to HIGH, the water temperature gets very unstable. Currently the knob is at MEDIUM and there is very little water flow and pressure. Is that normal in the uk? If not, what can I do to fix it?
Many thanks!
New shower.
And potentially a higher kw rated one of the cable is big enough to take it.
Sorry didn't realise I'd done that ... meant to use box at bottom.
Yes... If the cable is big enough :)
Combination of crap pressure and the shower power rating being quite low. We had similar, couldn't do much about the pressure so had to upgrade to a 10.8kw shower.
If you are renting and the landlord won't spend the money, not much you can do. Try one of the pressure increasing shower heads you can get on Amazon, they work by restricting the water flow so you get less 'shower'.
Cleaning that shower head or even replacing it would help somewhat. Also don't buy one of those Amazon/Ali Express shower heads with the stone things in the handle part, they wreck electric showers.
Luckily I don't have an electric shower and the pressure is good. I've got the shower head with the little stones in and it's bloody marvelous lol. But yeh, it'd be useless without good water pressure.
Don't forget wiring going to shower, don't want risk of a fire. It has to be able to carry the current drawn by appliance
If you go for a shower upgrade.
If you're renting, there's not much you can do. If you're the owner, you could have a water pressure pump installed (not sure of the actual English term).
The short answer is…. You probably don’t, especially if you’re renting. Landlords won’t be interested in spending the amount required to get it sorted.
However if you own then…
Electric showers are kinda shit, especially the one you have. In order to change that you’ll need a 10+kw unit installing - I can almost guarantee the wiring you have there at the minute doesn’t support that load, so there’s another expense.
If you have a hot water tank I’d recommend having a pump out and changing the shower out to work with that.
I have noticed this is a problem in the majority of houses and hotels I have stayed at in the UK. You could just get a shower pressure booster from B&Q or Screwfix. If you want something cheaper you can try to change your shower head first. You could also have a leak with the water that comes into your house so if you are private renting you should ask your landlord and say you suspect a leak I think. Don't quote me on that since I don't have much experience with this. Hope this helps.
Not an expert but I've learned from previous Reddit posts that one can't always just change the shower head - there can be damage to the shower itself.
Unless the electric shower contains a booster pump (I've never seen one but I can't rule it out) a 'more powerful' model will be able to impart more heat, but not affect the pressure necessarily. Looking at Screwfix there are umpteen showers with 10.8kW rating but promising different flow rates at a given supply pressure.
Is the pressure better anywhere else on the property? If so you may get an improvement by replacing/enlarging the supply to the shower.
If the pressure is poor all over then opening up your stopcock may yield a benefit.
If your mains pressure isn't great then a booster pump might be necessary.
How do you get your hot water elsewhere in the property?
One thing I do that may make a tiny bit of difference, is place a washer with a smaller hole in each end of the flexi-pipe to back the water up and therefore increase pressure. Probably won’t achieve what you want though.
Thanks for all the suggestions! They are very helpful! Yes, I rent this house, so it seems like there isn't much I can do (•̩̩̩̩＿•̩̩̩̩). I will buy a new shower head and hope it works."
Also, change the head to one of those stone ones that turn the water coming out to a mist. Stone Stream do them. And they also sell water filter / softeners which also help the pressure slightly. By turning the water to mist rather than streams it slightly negates the need for more pressure.
Check the pressure of the taps, if it sucks, the house sucks, if it's good, then the shower isn't strong enough or is blocked. Probably the former.
Some types of shower have a small filter. Check underneath it.
Get one of those shower beads with beads in the handle, worked for us
Electric showers are mostly crap compared to a mains shower. A really good electric shower with a high power will help. Cable size requirements.
We had a crap electric shower and put up with it for years, I bought a standard shower hose and a low pressure shower head and just attached it to the bath tap and surprisingly that provided much higher pressure.
We had this kind of pressure, landlord refused to upgrade, so we ended up paying ~£200 to get a shower mixer tap fitted, but ours is a bath.
A longer more convoluted fix would be to build a frame above the shower that can hold a 300L tank, then fill it with the hot shower hose ten minutes before you want to wash, attach a mechanism to the bottom of the tank that allows you to open a sluice gate that then feeds onto one of those rain type showers. Kneel under the lukewarm downpour and enjoy being blasted by water untill it runs out.
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