Clogged up electric showers

Mick Wainwright

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Mar 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/25/98

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Hi
Our 7kw electric shower is about five years old and gives heat out only at
the highest or near highest settings. I've ignored the problem for a while
because Tritons service department gave me costings of £55 plus for
replacement parts.
Big question is ...... Is there any way of descaling the ' kettle '.?
Seems it would be worth a try.

TIA
Mick Wainwright

Peter Lamswood

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Mar 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/25/98

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I've de-scaled a Heatrae Saudia (?) shower using kettle de-scaler. I had
to take the whole shower unit off the wall and stand it upside down in a
bucket then pour the de-scaler into the "tank" and leave it for a few
hours.

It worked OK.

Peter
--
"The public wants what the public gets"

All opinions expressed are personal and not necessarily those of my
employer.

Keith Refson - real email address in signature

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Mar 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/25/98

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"Mick Wainwright" <B.M.Wai...@btinternet.com> writes:

>
> Hi
> Our 7kw electric shower is about five years old and gives heat out only at
> the highest or near highest settings. I've ignored the problem for a while
> because Tritons service department gave me costings of £55 plus for
> replacement parts.
> Big question is ...... Is there any way of descaling the ' kettle '.?
> Seems it would be worth a try.

I used to have one of these and managed to descale it by disconnecting
it, dismantling it and soaking the heater element and valve in descaler.
Depends on how confident you are about dismantling and reassembling
a rather safety-critical piece of electrical equipment correctly.

As a lesser option you *could* try disconnecting the incoming water
pipe, stopping up the outlet and filling with descaling solution.
If your inlet isn't at the top you will have to use some temporary
pipework to fill and contain the descaler.

Keith Refson

oman

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Mar 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/25/98

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B.M.Wai...@btinternet.com,news writes:

>Our 7kw electric shower is about five years old and gives heat out only
>at
>the highest or near highest settings.

It sounds more like a lack of heat due to only one element working.
If the unit had a water restriction it would get too hot even at a low
setting.
When you change from low to high power, can you feel any difference in
water temperature.

John

Malcolm Austen

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Apr 3, 1998, 3:00:00 AM4/3/98

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In article <wx90pzk...@earth.ox.ac.uk>,
Keith Refson - real email address in signature <rub...@bounce.com> wrote:

Hi Keith!

>"Mick Wainwright" <B.M.Wai...@btinternet.com> writes:
>> Our 7kw electric shower is about five years old and gives heat out only a=
>t
>> the highest or near highest settings. I've ignored the problem for a whi=
>le
>> because Tritons service department gave me costings of =A355 plus for
>> replacement parts.
>> Big question is ...... Is there any way of descaling the ' kettle '.=

>
>I used to have one of these and managed to descale it by disconnecting
>it, dismantling it and soaking the heater element and valve in descaler.
>Depends on how confident you are about dismantling and reassembling
>a rather safety-critical piece of electrical equipment correctly.

I did that, more or less, with our previous shower - took the heating
chamber right out, clamped in in the workmate in the garden, whittled
a cork down to fit one end and filled it with descaler solution. I
also cleaned the seam that appeared to be seeping very slightly and
ran some fresh solder into/over it, replaced the burnt-looking relay
and got some more years out of it.

I should add that this work did get delayed some months until after I
fitted the new consumer unit with the 30mA RCCB in it! That unit adds
confidence for work on any appliance that uses both E and W.

regards,
Malcolm.

Malcolm...@OUCS.ox.ac.uk http://users.ox.ac.uk/~malcolm/