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What Makes A Good Shower?
Fully Cast Solid Brass:
At Ergonomic Designs we ensure all our taps and showers are made from fully cast solid brass this is important because it:
1. Increases longevity of your shower valve or bathroom/kitchen tap, brass is known for its properties of withstanding deterioration in the form of corrosion, wear and tear.
2. Brass functions efficiently in high temperatures (used in boiler systems) this is of key importance as hot water will be passing through the body of your tap or shower.
3. Excellent metal to use with chroming
4. Our brass bodies are fully casted, not hand welded as is the case with many cheaper valves on the market, these are more susceptible to problems on the body itself such as leaks and breaks.
Ceramic Discs:
We use ceramic discs in our on/off cartridges as opposed to rubber washers, this is important because:
1. Ceramic discs do not wear out over time as rubber washers in cheaper valves and taps do.
2. This means you will not encounter frustrating drips from your taps and shower
3. Enables easy control of the tap or shower itself, with our user friendly design, one can instantly turn on or off the shower or tap with a quarter turn.
Chrome:
Our taps and showers come with a mirror chrome plated finish, the quality of our chroming is high and we make sure of this by using:
1. The best quality brass which allows the chroming to be of higher quality. This can be seen as our valves and taps give a far sharper reflection in the chroming, compared to the chroming on cheaper valves on the market, which have a much less defined reflection from their plates.
2. We polish our brass before the chroming takes place as to further enhance its quality.
Shower Types:
There are three main types of showers; these are electric, thermostatic mixer showers, and power showers.
Electric Showers:
Electric showers can be used within any domestic water system. They are connected to the mains cold water and an element within the shower heats the water as it passes through the unit.
To get an efficient electric shower, the water at your mains entry must have a running pressure of min 1 bar, must flow at a rate of 8 litres per minute and have a maximum static pressure of 10 bar.
The temperature is controlled by varying the rate at which the water passes through the element, therefore cold results in full power and hot results in less power. The higher the wattage on your shower the more it heats up the water and so will provide a more powerful water flow at a given temperature than a lower wattage one. Showers range from 7.5 kW to 10.5kw.
Thermostatic Mixer Showers:
These mix the hot and cold water in a Shower valve and are suitable for either low or high pressure systems. They are available as exposed and concealed fixtures. They incorporates a pre-set thermostat that will sense a sudden change in temperature and have a temperature limiting device to stop very high temperatures that could be dangerous .
To operate correctly both the hot and the cold water need to come from a source operating at the same pressure i.e. mains fed system, or both can come from tank fed system. A mixer shower will not increase the flow of water to your system. If your water flows from your taps at a poor rate, this is the rate it will feed the shower.
Power Shower:
These are mixer showers with integral pumps which allow us the increase the rate of water flow from the shower head. They can only be installed on low pressure, tank fed systems. A 190 litre cold water tank is required if it intends to supply many outlets, a 95 litre cold water tank is acceptable for the shower alone. A dedicated hot and cold water supply is necessary.
To get a good power shower the tank must always be above the shower to ensure it works and more precisely it needs to high enough above the shower head to ensure a sufficient flow rate. A 1 metre distance from the top of the shower head to the outlet of the water tank provides us with 0.1 bar pressure.
To have a good power shower we recommend a minimum of 0.1-0.2 bar pressure which in turn equates to a 1-2 metre distance between your shower head and water tank. The pump will in turn boost your water pressure , the amount it boosts it by depends on the pump you have purchased.
