ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Shower puzzler

Same attitude as in France, just a different accent!

"Senor, the shower she is working, no? Esta bueno!"

Well you wouldn't catch me in that shower!

Finally got around to stripping down the offending unit:









The element assembly looks remarkably clean for this area (very hard water), but I know the shower has only seen occasional use.

I can't see anything obviously wrong, no excessive scale, the elements are showing 13.1 and 13.6 ohms, and even on the 1kV range of my megger I'm reading insulation resistances in the hundreds of megohms range.

Seeing the inside would really make you wonder how they were ever allowed to go in the shower cubical. Even with RCD protection!

Were they ever installed pre-RCD days?

Their IP rating doesn't look great..

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 03-06-2007).]

Sure. In fact there is still nothing in BS7671 today which requires them to be on an RCD-protected circuit.

Makes for a stark contrast with the "no sockets in the bathroom" stance, doesn't it?

If the proposed changes for the 2008 revisions go through though, showers will need to be on RCD circuits, as will even lights in a bathroom. Talk about going from one extreme to the other!



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-06-2007).]

Yeiks, they're specifically required to be on an RCD here, as is the immersion / any shower pumps etc.

Paul, what is the unthread line for? I assume the bottom threaded line with the thermoswitch or flow switch is the cold water inlet. The other threaded line is the discharge. Is there no mixing valve or anti-scald valve?

No, the threaded coupling on the right is the cold inlet. The left-hand one is the outlet to which the shower hose attaches; the device with the blue wires is the protective thermostat. There's another 'stat mounted on top of the heating canister which acts as a main thermal cutout.

The other tube running from the bottom of the canister is just a pressure-relief outlet should there be both a blockage and a main cutout failure.
http://www.shower-spares.co.uk/triton/tx7000i_and_tx7500i.htm

If you think that's scary you should look inside a Dolphin one. Some friends bought a house where the previous owner had had an expensive bathroom refit. I looked inside the shower unit, which was leaking internally, to find that the heating elements are uninsulated wire spirals within a plastic enclosure. Didn't have much difficulty persuading them to be rid of it! You can see the sort of assembly sketched quite well at : http://www.showerdoc.co.uk/shower-spares/dolphin/heater.html

Thankfully I have a normal shower