Hard water, low pressure electric shower & hot water hell. :-(

[Joe_R]

Hi all,

I've come desperate for direction! I own a one bed flat from '89 that's not been refitted since then. I'm in an area with very hard water and consequently have all the problems you can think of. What I don't know is what direction makes sense for me to take.

I have an electric immersion heater and a cold tank, the cold tank (because of the flat design) is situated at about chest height. Anything connected to the cold tank has incredibly low pressure, as expected from its height and the hard water I'd guess. Mains pressure seems to be pretty decent and feeds the kitchen taps and washing machine. The whole bathroom is fed from the cold tank. The toilet barely fills despite replacing the inlet and the shower has barely dribble-strength pressure. The low flow and hard water have caused it to fail again. The immersion heater just about works, but I guess it's furred up - it takes ages to heat, has no pressure and the thermostat has failed.

What I'm trying to decide is what the best way forward is?! I have no gas fed to the flat and cannot raise the cold water tank any further. I've toyed with the idea of removing the immersion heater and cold water tank and replacing them with a softener feeding a continuous flow heater, taking all cold feeds directly from the softener and using the continuous flow to feed a traditional shower, removing the existing broken electric one. Is this nuts? Is it massively expensive? Will it give me decent hot water at decent pressure?

Any other (more experienced) suggestions are very welcome!

Thanks in advance,

Joe

 

[Puddle]

If you have the main pressure ,would maybe look at a unvented cylinder heated by immersion heater linked to cheap rate electricity tariff

 

[Destroyer2813]

Same as long as you have good incoming pressure and flow rate swap to a unvented direct cylinder, then you get a decent shower. If you have a unvented fitted make sure your installer has his unvented ticket