Good Morning,
I'm trying to work out what's wrong but I'm not an expert so please explain in laymans terms if possible!
Last Tuesday at 06:30am I turned off my (power) shower in order to let the conditioner soak into my hair as I always do, then when I tried to turn on again it made a loud weird grinding noise and no water came out. Checked all other taps, no hot water from any of them (upstairs & downstairs) but cold seemed OK. Went to work and when I got home found out that a van with a tannoy had driven down the road mid-morning announcing that the water supply had been disrupted (don't know if it was the Water company or another Utility, seems to be a hole in the road up the hill from my house)
Had several showers in and between without incident until Saturday, when exactly the same thing happened again. I contacted the water company and they said they didn't have anything going on in the area but they would check and call back. They never did though, but water came back on. Same thing has happened every shower since, I get about 5 - 10 minutes hot water then it suddenly stops. If I wait 20 minutes then turn on a hot tap I might get a trickle of lukewarm or scalding water which then dries up, but 12 hours later when I get home from work everything seems fine.
What could it be? Neighbours have said their pressure fluctuates but they're not having appliance problems. I'm stumped!
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Lugga:

We really don't use the power showers over here in USA very much yet. From what I know about these... they are very complicated to work on.

Also sounds like this is further complicated with work being done on main water lines.

At this point, unless someone here has experience with these ELECTRIC POWER SHOWERS I have to recommend that you call a qualified plumber in your area.

Here is a link to an exploded parts view of typical power shower... very complicated.

Mira Essentials Spares - Electric Power Shower

Let us know what you think... Mark

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Hi Mark,
Thanks for your sugeestion - To be honest I thought the Power Shower issue was probably secondary, because there's no hot water from any taps (think Americans call them faucets or something like that) either.
My problem has since worsened, yesterday I got 5 or less minutes of hot water through the shower head then all the hot taps went dry and were still dry this morning. Cold water still comes through OK both upstairs and downstairs.
Could it be a pressure issue? My boiler is in the kitchen, there's an insulated cylinder in the bathroom, and above that there's another tank-thing. I've no idea what direction the mains water gets circulated though.
I'm going to ask my next-door neighbour tonight to see if they have experienced anything odd.
Thanks again,
Lugga

I am not familiar with some of the terms you use... sounds like the insulated cylinder or the other "tank thing" may be bad... ;)

Call a licensed plumber.. see what he thinks.

Definitely not a PRESSURE ISSUE!!

Please stop back and let us know what happens. I would appreciate it. Good luck... Mark

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Hi Mark,
Just to let you know, good old Dad came and helped me solve the problem. Turns out my 'tank-thing' is a header tank for the hot water system and it has a ball-cock valve on the inlet pipe, which had got blocked. I think the initial water cut-off had dislodged some gunk stuff that gradually clogged it up over a couple of weeks. Anyway at the time of my last message it had finally totally blocked the valve and the header tank was totally empty, so we purchased a new valve for ~GBP10 and some washers which he then fitted for me and hey-presto everything is fine again.:cool:
What a relief!
Thanks for your input, hope I didn't offend you with the Faucet comment (didn't mean to) & hope the above is useful to you in the future.
Kay

Thanks for the update! Glad you're up and running... ;)