Home & Garden Maintenance & Repairs

How To Install A Shower.

Fitting a shower is a highly skilled job and needs a fair degree of plumbing and electrical work. There are a number of things to consider when planning the electric circuit. The electrical circuit needs to be designed with the current demand of the shower unit in mind. There are two types of cable used to install an electric shower 6mm or 10mm. The 10mm cable is required on 10.5 and 9.5kw showers and the 6mm cable is used on the 8.5kw showers. Another factor to think about when planning the electrical installation is the length of the run.
Mcb sizes are also another thing to consider, Mcb stands for mechanical circuit breaker. An mcb protects the electrical cable from over load and kills the power if a fault develops .
If you choose the wrong size mechanical circuit breaker for the electric cable, it can cause the cable to over load and burn out. Or on the other side of the coin the shower will not operate properly. If you are not competent with electrics I would not advise you to attempt to do the electrical installation work. Hire a qualified electrician to do this for you as electric showers can be dangerous if not fitted correctly.
The plumbing side of the job is a whole lot easier and a lot less dangerous.
Every electric shower is connected to the mains cold water supply. To plumb the shower in firstly turn off the water at the mains. Then connect the pipe at the shower inlet and plumb the other end into the nearest mains cold pipe. You can use plastic pipe the likes of speed fit or poly plumb as its easy to use. The fittings and the pipe just push together, no blow lamps or spanners required. You can do the pipe work in copper pipe if you like it dose not make a difference to the shower. There is just a little more skill involved to join the copper fittings.

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