Failed electric shower that went bang.

Also common in Ireland although we seem to prefer the pumped electric version, or at least it's the type I've come across most in various rented houses and B&Bs over the years. Same thing but with an extra pump built in to boost the water pressure which makes the unit a little bigger. They also use a dedicated connection to the cold water tank in the attic rather than the mains so the pump has a big reservoir to work with.

Denis Looby

The flow switch is just for the low pressure LED/neon, if you don't spot it illuminated and you leave the unit on high setting the thermal cutout will kick in. I had a Triton where this was lit all the time, it was due to mineral buildup inside the pipe feeding to the diaphragm, that eventually caused the unit to fail in a similar way, one of the smaller plastic pipes cracked due to the increase in pressure caused by reduced diameter and water went everywhere.

The Tinkering Shed

The case is designed to thoroughly shield components from water and the main water path is both grounded and made equipotential to adjacent plumbing. Showers are always powered by 30mA trip RCDs. The only deaths I know of are due to bad installation/maintenance where people have been poking around inside them while showering. Which is kinda asking for it.

Big Clive

Clive, not only Americans think this sort of thing is a death trap, I do so too. Could you please elaborate on how bringing mains voltage into the shower compartment, in a device you're supposed to touch when wet, and which may get spray all over it while showering, is considered safe? What kind of safety measures and mitigations are there? What kind of grounding is used to make sure no part of the device becomes live at any moment? Does it have an internal GFI? Remember, when you're wet all over and standing in a puddle of water, as little as 30ish Volts may be enough to kill you.

horrovac

Those electric showers are quite popular here in Ireland also. Personally I much prefer our mains pressure shower, fed from a hot water tank due to the higher 3 bar pressure and flow. The tank is heated daily with an oil-fired boiler (and stove in the winter). During frosty weather, the difference is massive as the electric shower's flow needs to be turned well down for warm water, at least with my brother's 9kW Triton.

Seán Byrne

Andreas, I started to notice something similar in my area, Rochester, NY, where it seems that water heaters seem to die in groups. Often after a big holiday weekend I’ll see several old heaters at the curb around my neighborhood. I’m almost positive it’s just a slight increase in water pressure. My town uses a tower that is replenished at night. I think they increase the amount on high use days. I noticed a trend long before my original heater died on the Fourth of July around 7am. The next garbage day there were 3 water heaters at the curb on my street alone. If I were paranoid I’d suspect the Plummer’s Union :)

Jim

Could it be because in a 1ph system the neutral must be isolated from the earthed walls of the heater chamber, otherwise it would defeat the protection offered by an RCD? In a 3ph system the current would be perfectly balanced between the three phases, so there would be no need to connect a neutral as no current would flow in it anyway. With no risk of connecting the neutral to the earth, I guess the wires could be bare as no current would leak through the water to earth in the perfectly balanced system. If a phase was lost, current would then flow through the water to the earthed heater chamber and trip the RCD. I'm certainly not qualified though so only guessing.

Berkeloid

Seems like installing some kind of mesh under the unit to catch the rubber ball but let the water through would be handy.

Berkeloid

Surely you'd be pretty safe due to the product design though? All the pipes would be earthed so any bad wiring would trip an RCD, and given that Clive has shown examples where the water is actually live and it doesn't seem to kill the showeree, it seems like this kind of design is pretty safe.

Berkeloid

It wasn't as big a bang as SN4... thankfully 😂

Colin Jones

Not very common here in NL. I've seen it in (eastern) Germany though. Water flow isn't terribly high, but it's better than no hot water at all. Miss the circuit doodle on this one :-(

Paul Schuur

The pressure sensor may work in a similar way to the water demand detection in some combi boilers. When the pressure is low it indicates a flow of water. A high pressure indicates a blockage either in the heating element or outlet hose. In some combi boilers a similar switch is used to detect hot water demand. The original ones were entirely mechanical and operated a bypass valve that diverted the central heating feed to the hot water heat exchanger.

Dave Davies

many heating appliances die after maintenance in the water system "upstream", either in the house, street or even water treatment facility: If there pressure changes during operation, e.g. caused by air bubbles or debris clogging up filters and or even rushig through the heater: this may rupture already aged and weakend seals, diaphrames or semi corroded heating wires.

Andreas Dorfer

i wonder why single phase heaters use shielded coils and 3phase units prefer to go with "bare metal heating wire".

Andreas Dorfer

Better get him that replacement before the customers notice the smell... :P

Scott Miller

I have the same Triton that I removed for a different water leak. I have not had much luck with the quality of shower units. Two tritons leaked / dripped, one was very expensive remote heater to the control panel. Another make failed short on one of the heating elements in 2y guarantee but they would not send me a replacement unless I paid for a an engineer visit and took time of work to wait for him ??? Another make is on its 2nd major repair 1/ had to replace a capacitor (hack clipped off the cap and soldered to the tails bodge could not just lift the PCB to get to the back) 2/ Plastic bracket that held the micro switch to detect the low water pressure distorted, it took 3 goes over months to fix this in a rented property. On many the safety blow out spits a black ball out and can't be reset you have to buy a more new small plastic assembly https://www.showerspares.com/blog/how-to-change-a-pressure-relief-device-prd Every time the micro switch falsely tripped the shower was HOT and there was no cooldown so the safety valve would blow. ;-(( In 1975ish our first shower was a Carousel 6kw very basic but a step up from the stethoscope rubber shower push on like this https://photos.app.goo.gl/cbPV4serfoXnwpyS8 10.5 kw is about the biggest you can get to run on domestic wiring in the UK.

John Harrison

Reminds me of the much-more-suspicious suicide shower https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjA0aee07k . I think that was the first video I saw from you!

Slippery Stallion

No experience with them but David Savery mentions them in a few of his YouTube videos, like the one where he installed a priority switch to cut power to the electric vehicle charger if the shower was in use. I think the one he was using was 50 amp single phase, which is why he didn't want to be running an EV charger at a similar current at the same time.

Berkeloid

Interesting, that's what we use in the US as well. 50 Gallon / 200L hot tank heated by gas or electric. Instant hot water is more efficient but most of the units you can get here are either a whole house on demand heater or a small under sink unit for a single tap. I guess these small shower units save on plumbing and would be fairly efficient.

Chris Parsons

Get a Mira shower next, not seen a Triton last as long as that.

Jamie

We had one of these around 30 years ago. They were shipped with a white plastic shower hose, if it kinked the valve would blow. I think back then we had a Triton service engineer fix it. I then discovered the valve cost about £0.70p I'm wondering if Ralfy had a new solenoid recently? Isn't Eaton a US owned company. I remember Triton being somwhere near me in Nuneaton. Interesting teardown, glad Ralfy got out of the bath safely!

What level of supply current do you need for this? Is there a similar device on the bathroom sink?What's on a typical bathroom ring circuit?

Woo!

Michael Thompson

I would imagine the switch was for a low pressure cut-off, as the front panel had a "Low Pressure" LED. Also, I know I would be willing to use something like that in my house, but I wouldn't trust a sparkie to be doing wiring in the shower, nor would I trust a plumber to be working with that wiring. I've come across too many examples of "licensed professionals" who should not have that paper.

neal richard

Triton is a good shower make, not surprised it lasted that long! Cool disassembly vid!

What’s the price of such a unit. In belgium we have these big 100L or 150 or 200Liters tanks and the keep the water at a temperature. Looks a nice device. This device heat the water direct. Most of these types are on gas .