Electric shower Part 1

[njs]

When we wanted a new bathroom, my wife wouldn't trust me with doing it myself after the "Kitchen cupboard", so we tried getting a tradesman to take it on, out of 15 we phoned, 7 turned up to estimate and only 1 gave us a quote. It seemed a very good price so we went with it anyway.

He turned up did a days work then vanished, never to be seen again... So we (stupidly) asked B&Q if they could do it. They were happy to although it was going to cost more, fine. They quoted 3 days for the whole job which I thought was pushing it so we allowed a week. It took 3 months. Everything they supplied was either faulty, broken or the wrong item. They couldn't project manage the job for anything (see 3 months). They supplied sub contractors to do the work, 1 being the electrician to connect the electric shower. This electrician used under rated cable to the shower from the distribution box, well over rated fuse in the distribution box, a cooker switch on the wall instead of a pull cord switch and failed to see that our old distribution box was not capable of supplying the extra amount of current. When we complained about this to B&Q they passed me straight over to the electrician, where we had a heated arguement. I insisted on a independant qualified electrician to inspect it and he said if we'd used it and it hadn't blown a fuse it would of killed the person in the shower...

[ultimatehandyman]

That is scary.

[skiking]

Was the shower installed correctly after the independant advice or are you still taking the risk ?

[njs]

The independant electrician re done ALL the work the previous one had done and fitted a new distribution box which was extra. But he still had used a fuse higher than was specified for my shower unit which was the larger of the 3 normal power ratings for electric showers... I only found that when... well you'll see in Electric shower part 2.