Shower mystery...

[Livsdaddy]

Hi all I know I’m cheeky for just joining and asking, but all my powers of logic are failing on this one!

Electric shower was working fine for about 6 years, then last week it started cutting out, the power lamp would fade and flicker, or go out completely, then after a couple of minutes it would burst back to life. Occasionally during the outages it would make a low buzzing noise. I tried opening it up and resripping the cables, reconnected and still the same. We have always had mega water pressure (open the wash basin tap fully and it’s so strong it bounces off the basin and showers your face) and that’s still the case.

So I took the plunge and went out and bought a brand new shower. And exactly the same problem! Cuts out, power lamp flickers, springs back to life! 

The power supply is on a 40A RCD at the fuse box which never trips out during the problem. 

Any ideas?

many thanks in advance 

 

[Andy™]

id go with the pull switch burnt out

of course youre supposed to fault find before randomly replacing parts and hoping for the best

 

[Livsdaddy]

Andy thank you. Now I didn’t even realise it had a switch... it does, and it’s buried in the cubby hole beside the bathroom. Found it, unscrewed it, and the cables are flaking off in my hands! 

 

[Doc Hudson]

A word or caution, I wouldn't go just fitting a new switch without a thorough test of the whole circuit integrity of the cables. Continuity, insulation resistance, Zs RCD operating times etc..  Your symptoms are very common with domestic electric showers, especially if installed by DIY without any standard testing recommended by the wiring regulations.  get it wrong and their is risk of fire or fatal shock. And as electricity can kill a healthy adult in less than half a second, it is not good practice to be standing in a jet of water from and untested electrical appliance/circuit.

Doc H.