Electric Showers - Confused

[BunkMoreland]

So when I purchased my flat, I inherited the Triton electric shower. This 9.5kw baby in fact

https://www.tritonshowers.co.uk/t80z-electric-show...

In time I want to completely redo the bathroom. But funds are not there at the moment.

Recently my trusty Triton has started to leak. And it seems weaker than when I first moved in. Took the cover off and the leak is between Part 5 and Part 3.



Problem is that the leak is hitting the internal on/off switch (red box) and it looks pretty rusty on the terminals.

So I figured I should get it replaced. Water and Electricity not ideal to be mixing. On Tritons website they offer the current model of that shower, so it seemed a good cost effective option to buy some time before I have to spend thousands on everything. The even offer a flat rate £125 fitting charge. So I thought bugger it, I'll have that as well. Make my life easy.

And it was until the fitting eligibility questionnaire asked about a "RCD" with a reset option. Which it seems I don't have in the system I have no idea who installed all this, I suspect DIY not pro judging from some stuff I've discovered! But the lack of resettable rcd means Triton wont come and install it.




Shower unit has wiring going out the back of the unit, through the wall to the red "master" on off switch as below.



The wiring then comes out of the switch and goes into the circuit breaker box


I guess the questions are:

Can I change that master switch for a resettable RCD, or perhaps put one in between the switch and the shower unit?. Can anyone recommend a suitable item? I'm happy to have a go if its just cut wires, bare the insides and tighten the screws down.

Or do I need an entire new circuit breaker box (seems some of these come with built in rcd points as well as the normal circuit breakers) and a pro electrician to do a nice job of it?

I'm assuming of course that I definitely DO need a resettable RCD for this application. And its not just Triton being difficult. I suppose I could just replace the shower unit and not worry about the RCD and probably wait for me to renovate the bathroom and have it done then?


Over to the experts of PH for their thoughts

EDIT TO ADD

OR, having now gone down the rabbit hole of Google.

Can I replace the shower mcb (lower photo) with a "type A" 40a RCBO and that solves the problem? Is that plug and play as well if I turn off all the power first?

Edited by BunkMoreland on Thursday 26th June 21:20

[richhead]

if you are looking for a short term fix as you are planning redoing the bathroom, why not just diy, they are not hard to fit, and if the same make and model even easyer.

[DorsetSparky]

How about an upfront RCD before the board, or getting an electrician to replace that main switch with a 100A RCD, and then you'll at least have one RCD protecting everything? In the interests of safety you want an electric shower to be RCD-protected. Ideally everything.

If you're there long term, best option might be a board change for a metal board with individual RCBO protection - this means each circuit breaker has a built-in RCD too, so one thing tripping doesn't cut power to your whole installation.

Get someone in and do it properly, don't mess around if you don't know what you're doing! I'd never mess around with my boiler, for example, because I don't know enough about it. If you gotta ask, you should probably defer to an expert.

Whereabouts you based?

Edited by DorsetSparky on Thursday 26th June 22:25

[DorsetSparky]

BunkMoreland said:

Can I replace the shower mcb (lower photo) with a "type A" 40a RCBO and that solves the problem? Is that plug and play as well if I turn off all the power first?

Edited by BunkMoreland on Thursday 26th June 21:20

Please don't take your board cover off or consider changing breakers yourself.

[BunkMoreland]

richhead said:

if you are looking for a short term fix as you are planning redoing the bathroom, why not just diy, they are not hard to fit, and if the same make and model even easier.

I don't know anything about plumbing really. If it was a straight replacement, Id have a go, but the new unit looks wider which means I'd need to cut/extend pipes. And I'd be there forever going back and forth to the shop trying to get the right size elbows and pipes and then the tools to cut etc. Better to get a pro in who'll have a million options on their van already to fit.

Other issue is of course that the wiring isn't suitable without the RCD fitted. Seems I basically have been lucky so far! I'd like to slap whoever didn't fit it!

I have no idea what to buy to rectify that, or how to fit it! And that's definitely beyond my knowledge as well!

DorsetSparky said:

Please don't take your board cover off or consider changing breakers yourself.

Yeah, I watched a YT video and its not as straightforward as I hoped, so I wont be doing that!

Thanks for the info ref changing the main switch to a RCD in the short term. I think I will get the whole board upgraded in due course, but I hope that changing the 100amp in the meantime to a RCD type is better than nothing and will be a relatively cheap thing!

I'm based South London. Checkatrade website says around a £1k for the whole board replaced to rcbo type. I don't know if that's a good price or not though

Edited by BunkMoreland on Thursday 26th June 22:59