Hi. Have had an Ivory11 10.5kw for some years, worked fine until about last Christmas. Had a lot of trouble with not heating up, felt it was a lack of mains pressure, called Anglian Water who admitted many leaks due to the adverse weather. Then the solenoid valve failed in the open position, so I fitted a new one. Since then, and during the better weather it's been quite good, but recently playing up again. Sometimes, pressure seems quite good, but I can feel the water temperature fluctuating slightly all the time I'm showering, similar to when the head is clogged, but it's not.On occasions it won't run hot at all, but you can leave it for a while and try again and it works fine. But yesterday it excelled itself, working fine for a few minutes, suddenly got very hot, accompanied by a noticeable drop in pressure at the shower head, then the cutout operated and it went cold. We've had this happen when somebody turns on a tap or flushes the toilet while someone else is showering, but this time nobody else was in the house and all appliances switched off. One thing I've noticed is that when the sfaety cutout operates, it seems to take a long time before it resets. Ideas please?
Bernard
Asked 12 years ago
by Bernard
This all sounds pressure related.
The shower needs a minimum of 1bar to operate properly
I would contact Anglian Water and ask them to carry out a pressure check first thing in the morning when everyone is showering.
Answered 12 years ago by
The Shower Doctor
Hi. I've resurrected this post as we've moved on a bit but still have a problem. I had Anglian water out again, the technician tested the pressure and insisted it was more than enough, and no other complaints in the village. He also said that we are very close to the main, with a short pipe run into the house, so should get a good flow, but thought that the jumper in the stopcock might be stuck partially closed after previous use, he turned it on and off a few times, and, to be fair, the water flow at the kitchen tap did appear better afterwards. We were asked to keep a log of the shower to try to pin down the times when the problem occurs. As a result, I've now noticed something else. When the shower is working correctly, as soon as you turn on the water at the switch, the light in the bathroom flickers, showing that the elements have switched on. On the occasions when the water doesn't heat, I've noticed that the lights don't flicker. This seems to happen even when the water pressure seems good.When the shower works successfully, a few seconds after turing off, you can hear a click from within, presumably due to a rise in temperature in the can when the water stops flowing causing the safety switch to trip. I believe this may not always reset when it cools down, so at the next use the water is cold. Can you tell me which component contains the safety switch please, so hopefully next time the problem occurs, I can test it with a meter to confirm?
Thanks
Bernard
Answered 12 years ago by
Anonymous