POwer Showers have been a very popular “add-on” or upgrade to a bathroom shower cubicle for a number of years, and now there are even more options and power outputs available. A variety of “Shower Panels” are also now available with multiple “body jets” to supplement the overhead shower head. The panel type will ONLY work with a minimum of 1.5 BAR, so a pump is essential.

Most people find that the normal unassisted head of water from a standard shower installation is just not enough to get that nice “invigorating feeling” you get from the combination of a good shower pump and shower-head.

There are a variety of pumps and shower heads on the market, to suit all tastes and needs. Some shower-heads have variable spray patterns. These are called “multi-mode”, where a ring is rotated to give different spray patterns. Some also have a “pulsating” setting for massage effects. These can be on wall-mounted fixed heads, or on the handset types, usually on sliders. Those pulsating and high-flow modes will only work well if you have a shower pump assisting the water flow.

Note that you can purchase small wall-mounted shower “boosters”, that work off the existing hot and cold water supplies, and can deliver up to 12 Litres per minute, for between £100 and £170. These are not suitable for combi-boilers, or pressurised systems, and they will also need an RCBO protected supply fused at 3 AMPS. Note that these do NOT heat the water, unlike the “instant” types, but those need a pull-chord isolation switch, and a seperate supply and circuit breaker of around 50AMPS.

If you have gas central heating, installing a good quality shower pump in an appropriate place (the airing cupboard is ideal) is a good way to improve your existing shower, or to add in a pumped power-shower feed to a new cubicle. You can get single pumps powerful enough to supply 2 showers in seperate bathrooms if needed. The advantage is then that only ONE power socket on ONE place needs to be installed, and power is usually very easy to wire in from the existing ring feeding the heating controls.

See the HINTS for shower pumps HERE. Also, for high quality shower pumps, and good installation advice,  see the useful page of external links to the WATERMILL site HERE.