Boiler or leccy shower. Which is more efficient?

[Tigman]

you can get a cheap exposed shower for less than £100 and run Hep2o plastic pipe from the hot supply and from the cold with mains pressure 15mm should do it , but if the runs are a long way you get cold water for a while

 

[julianf]

another graph -

 

[Rocketman]

Yes thermostatic but the pump blends the hot and cold so water is hot or warm when it comes out !

That's what a thermostatic does though, they all keep a constant temperature that is the whole purpose of them.

 

[Tigman]

Yes but the water is blended in the processor on the first push of the button when the water is hot in the processor its sent to the Rose and out so you do not get any cold water at the first on , when you turn on an ordinary shower the water takes a while to get to tempreture before the theremostat kicks in to keep it at a constant temp !

 

[brightspark]

well mine is the best 10,5kw and it had been fitted on a job for 4 weeks cost over 200 quid and there boiler was renewed and they changed it to powershower and i scored it for 20 quid bonus as well id allready wired the old one in our house with 10mm cable strait swop

 

[Tigman]

Last electric one I put in for a friend was a Mira Sport 8.5kw it was ok for a couple of weeks then she reckoned it wasnt working properly , I think all women have leather skin cause I couldnt keep my hand under it she said it was crap ! I got her to sort it under the guarentee

 

[Fintray]

Im really not sure youre right on that one?

This one is from a quick google search (there are plenty more with more or less the same figures though) -

We use none of the above, so i like to keep an eye on how much my effort saves us ; )

(and we have a shower that you certainly dont want to open your eyes under!)

Can't really argue against those figures (and oil would be about 3.9p/kWh at todays prices), maybe just my aversion to previous high oil bills.......

So what do you use?

 

[wookie]

Also if your boiler breaks down you can still get a shower and even fill the basin from it speaking from experience and I second brightspark get a good 10.5kw

Personally we have more problems with power cuts than the oil-fired boiler so for me at least an electric shower is a no go. When the power goes out my 1.5Kw Lister diesel genny is enough to run the house lights and the boiler electrics so I can still have the lights on and a warm home and I can still have a shower or bath if I want.

If the boiler packs up I have the immersion heater for hot water and a log burner that can make most of the house unbearably hot

 

[julianf]

So what do you use?

I make biodiesel for the cars. The by-product of this is crud glycerol, which is a heavy alcohol.
By itself, its troublesome to burn, but mixed with sawdust (plaster mixer) it burns hot

We have a solid fuel rayburn - i still have not sorted out the heat dump for it (its on my to-do list) so, most of the time, we end up running bathloads of hot water down the drain...

Of course, i could put coal on the rayburn, at whatever pence / kwh that runs at (coal is always the cheapest). Or i could plumb in the boiler (which will run on kerosene or bio-diesel) but, at present, neither are necessary.

So, all our heating, all our domestic hot water, and most of our cooking is done on a by product that id otherwise have to put effort into getting shot of. But it is a case of 'free' as in money, not as in time....

One day ill be too old for messing about like this. But its not too much bother yet.


Also on the to-do list is to put the single cylinder low rpm lister into service - water cooled, so could recover the heat from that, and will run on unprocessed vegetable oil - even solid oil if pre-heated. I was going to grid tie this (grid tied inverter, just like a wind turbine) but i think im going to just get a largeish ups instead, which will regenerate the waveform, and give temporary backup if the engine fails). I have a couple of real life friends with similar setups. To give a little perspective, someone called up only just today wanting me to buy 165 ltrs of frymax from them (palm oil) which is no good for the car in anything but the summer, but, if i ever do get the engine sorted out.... thats a fair few kw/h of electricity for the £16.50 ill pay them.


All of the above is very possible for anyone to do. But it does take some effort.

 

[Fintray]

Julian is that the Rayburn rescued from a wood somewhere?

 

[wristpin]

Whole hose pumped on both hot and cold other than direct fed kitchen cold. Showers will nearly drill holes in you! Not good for economy but vert nice!

 

[Kent]

The boiler all the way if it be a system boiler or a combi Gas, oil or solid fuel it don't matter much compared to electric. The only proviso is that its set up, serviced and specified correctly in the first place correct tank size KW rating for the home and its requirements etc. Electric is generated by oil etc at the start of this process then marked up and sold on by foreign companies out to make their shareholders money, how is it that one might think per KW of heat its going to be cheaper to use power from the grid?.
You can talk different showers and such but there has been a lot going on with boilers also

 

[normspanners]

I designed my system, I have a bungalow so dont have a lot of head---- ( dont even go there!! )---- in the hot water system, my gas boiler is in the kitchen, the other side of the wall at the back of boiler, is the airing cupboard in the bathroom so max distance from boiler to tank is 2mtrs cold feed tank in attic above hot tank. Shower is 2mtrs from hot tank and bath is the same, but the other side of bathroom.
I fed the the shower and bath with separate 22mm's from the feed tank and standard size hot tank.
Shower has low voltage pump system in small box in the cubicle, thermostatically controlled and two speed, power or gentle, no taps just press a button.
I have the hot tank set very high temp,
With gas boiler on and immersion, We can shower 5 people or more, decent length showers , one after the other with no problem. I also like a bath and from coming in, dirty and cold can be in a virtually full bath in 4/5 mins by whacking both taps on full. Heating up time for the shower, switch it on, take clothes off get in shower 30 sec.
Nice warm airing cupboard for towels and drying hanging clothes
Combi boiler? NO THANKS
the other advantage is i have mod'ed my washing machine (1.5 mtrs from hot tank) to hot/cold fill can do full wash in half cold fill time.
I also have a waste oil boiler to keep the system ticking over.
System has worked for 25yrs without a hitch apart from one immersion heater and modding the hot tank from gravity to pumped when the oil boiler was installed.

 

[brightspark]

i just fitted a heat only boiler with fully pumped system y plan .combi are ok in a small flat thats about it. i wouldnt have one given

 

[Wedg1e]

I've had three combis, fitted two myself and had negligible issues with any of them.

 

[brightspark]

I've had three combis, fitted two myself and had negligible issues with any of them.

there still crap my boiler just packed in after 30 years 10 years is about max life of a new boiler now and most need repairing before that mines an ideal standard heat only 7 years guarantee and apaRANTLY now do a one with 10 year

 

[normspanners]

Sorry I lied--- one hitch in my system , I now remember, I had a plumber in, to pipe the gas in to boiler. ( needed to be corgi reg) He let sand get in gas pipe from trench and it cost me two gas valves before I sussed it, cost me a fortune in wasted gas over a two year period with gas leaking through boiler, we where using as much in summer as winter, we were on a budget plan, which spread the cost over the year, so wasn't obvious only reason i sussed it was boiler lit up one day when I walked in back door, I heard it and thought---- eay up TIMER IS NOT ON! Why has it lit up ??? the draft from the door wafted/pulled the gas back down the flue and the pilot light lit it !! So fitted new valve same thing year later. Stripped gas valve full of sand.
Thing was the manual said purge gas pipe BEFORE commissioning, he said oh you dont need to do that, waste of time ----WASTE OF FLIPPIN GAS MORE LIKE.

 

[julianf]

Julian is that the Rayburn rescued from a wood somewhere?

Yes (i guess i must have mentioned it, but i dont remember when!)

 

[normspanners]

i still have not sorted out the heat dump for it

Could you not use/make , a massive insulated hot tank as a heat store ?? rather than dump it ? I had thought about this for my waste oil burner, you can shut boiler off at night and run off the heat store.

 

[Rocketman]

Here is a pic for Brightspark and his love of electric showers. Moving half of the very first tool design I did when I started my own business back in 2009

Can you see what it is