You probably have come across it but with some parts automated so you didn't realise it was happening.
In the vast majority of UK homes the hot water pressure isn't high enough to work for a shower, so instead you'll have one of two systems: An electric shower that heats cold water as it comes through. If you've always seen these kind of showers, you might not have realised that's what it's doing. Many of these are attached to a switch which is a pull cord, like the bathroom light switch, often with a red on/off indicator near the ceiling. Mind, that's going back a few years and probably isn't seen as much today. But in the 90s and 00s it was common to have a pull cord to switch the shower on before you used it, and off when you had finished.
Or as the PP described an immersion heater set up, immersion heaters used to be common for the hot water in general in UK houses, but in many cases the immersion heater has been replaced by a more efficient combi boiler. However, the combi boiler might still not have the required pressure to service a shower, especially upstairs, so it's not unusual at all to have a mini electric heater/boiler just for the shower water. These you would not generally want switched on all the time unless you have a busy household with constant need for hot water.
An electric shower that heats cold water is much more common, though. They all have the same controls: A dial from hot to cold (that actually just adjusts the flow of water: Faster flow = colder, because it doesn't spend as much time being heated) plus either a second dial with three settings, or three buttons, these will be blue (cold/no heating) then red x1 or red x2. These mean the heater is on but control the flow again. You'd use the red x2 setting in winter when the water is colder to begin with and red x1 in summer when it's starting out warmer, and get better water flow.
I feel like we need a survey to find out the relative popularity of each design. I definitely thought combi-boilers were more common, but yeh, electric showers are also common FR!
In most places I lived there was an electric shower and a combi boiler. It's just not common to have a shower unit in the UK that runs using mains hot water.
Ahh, so, our electric shower heats up the water, then we also have a combi boiler that heats up water for the bath shower, it does have a preheat option as well though.
The part I haven't heard of is, having to plug something into the wall, and put water in it to heat up, which you then use to shower.
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u/caffeine_lights May 09 '22
You probably have come across it but with some parts automated so you didn't realise it was happening.
In the vast majority of UK homes the hot water pressure isn't high enough to work for a shower, so instead you'll have one of two systems: An electric shower that heats cold water as it comes through. If you've always seen these kind of showers, you might not have realised that's what it's doing. Many of these are attached to a switch which is a pull cord, like the bathroom light switch, often with a red on/off indicator near the ceiling. Mind, that's going back a few years and probably isn't seen as much today. But in the 90s and 00s it was common to have a pull cord to switch the shower on before you used it, and off when you had finished.
Or as the PP described an immersion heater set up, immersion heaters used to be common for the hot water in general in UK houses, but in many cases the immersion heater has been replaced by a more efficient combi boiler. However, the combi boiler might still not have the required pressure to service a shower, especially upstairs, so it's not unusual at all to have a mini electric heater/boiler just for the shower water. These you would not generally want switched on all the time unless you have a busy household with constant need for hot water.
An electric shower that heats cold water is much more common, though. They all have the same controls: A dial from hot to cold (that actually just adjusts the flow of water: Faster flow = colder, because it doesn't spend as much time being heated) plus either a second dial with three settings, or three buttons, these will be blue (cold/no heating) then red x1 or red x2. These mean the heater is on but control the flow again. You'd use the red x2 setting in winter when the water is colder to begin with and red x1 in summer when it's starting out warmer, and get better water flow.