Broken Shower: Which Type, What Failed, and Can It Wait?

Which kind of shower have you got?

The same symptom points to a different fault on each type, so settle this before anything else. Look at what is on the wall and what switches it on.

• Electric: a single box on the wall with its own buttons or dial, switched by a ceiling pull-cord or a wall switch outside the bathroom. It takes only cold mains water and heats it inside the box, so the boiler plays no part.
• Mixer: a bar valve on the wall, or a valve set into the wall, with one or two handles and both hot and cold pipes feeding it. The hot comes from a combi boiler or a cylinder. Most modern mixers are thermostatic.
• Power shower: a mixer with a pump, either built into a box on the wall that looks like an electric shower but has no heater, or a separate pump in the airing cupboard or under the bath. It runs from a loft tank and a cylinder, never from a combi.
• Still unsure? A breaker labelled for the shower at the consumer unit means electric. A fused spur switch near the airing cupboard or bath usually means a pump. Neither means a plain mixer.

No water, no heat or leaking: what each one points to

Before blaming the shower, run the basin hot and cold taps in the same room. If they fail too, the shower is only the symptom and the supply or the boiler is the real problem. If they run normally, find your type and symptom below.

• Electric, no water: check the light on the pull-cord switch, then the shower breaker (reset it once only), then the kitchen cold tap. Lights and a click with no flow usually means the inlet solenoid. The full order is in electric shower stopped working.
• Electric, no heat: unscrew the head and run the bare hose into the tray. A scaled head holds back the flow and trips the unit’s thermal cut-out. Good flow that stays cold means the element or cut-out has failed inside the casing.
• Electric, leaking from the casing: the pressure relief device has usually vented because the head or hose is blocked. Switch the shower off at its breaker before you touch it.
• Mixer, no water: a thermostatic valve shuts itself down when the hot or cold supply fails, so a boiler fault can look like a dead shower. After that, suspect a closed service valve or clogged inlet filters; see no water coming out of the shower.
• Mixer, no heat with hot at the basin: the cartridge has scaled up, or a check valve is letting cold into the hot side. That is covered in no hot water to the shower only.
• Mixer, leaking: a drip from the head long after use is a worn cartridge, explained in leaking shower head. Water on the ceiling below or behind the tiles is the waste, a seal or a valve joint, which shower leaking tests stage by stage.
• Power shower, no water: listen. A hum with no flow means the pump is dry or airlocked, often because the loft tank has emptied. Silence means no power or a failed flow switch. If it runs but only feebly, on any type, see low shower pressure.
• Any type, water standing in the tray: the shower works and the waste does not. Hair in the trap is the usual cause of a slow or blocked shower drain.

If a mixer shower went cold because the boiler has stopped and you can smell gas, open windows, turn off the gas at the meter if it is safe to reach and do not touch light switches. Then leave the property and call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999.

When does the water have to go off now?

Most broken showers can sit until morning. A leak on the supply side cannot, because the pipes feeding the valve stay under pressure whether or not anyone is showering, and they will leak all night.

Isolate as close to the shower as you can. Many valves have small isolating valves on the hot and cold inlets, behind the cover plate or on the wall elbows; turn the slot across the pipe with a flat screwdriver to close them. An electric shower usually has one on its cold feed, below or beside the unit. If you cannot find one or it will not move, close the main stopcock. On a tank-fed system the stopcock stops the mains but not the water already stored in the loft tank and cylinder, so a leak on the hot side may keep running until you also close the valve on the pipe leaving the cylinder or tank.

Turn the water off tonight if any of these apply:

• Water keeps appearing on the ceiling below, or behind the tiles, with the shower switched off
• A joint behind a bar valve or under the bath panel is spraying or dripping steadily
• Water is coming out of an electric shower casing, or running down its cable or switch
• A power shower pump is humming with nothing coming out, or leaking from its fittings, in which case switch it off at its fused spur as well

An electric shower puts water and a high-current circuit in the same box. Switch it off at the consumer unit, not just at the pull-cord, before touching the unit or anything wet around it, so long as the fuse board itself is dry. If you smell burning or see scorch marks, leave the circuit off until an electrician has seen it.

Is it worth a call-out tonight, or can it wait?

The £60 call-out applies at any hour, day or night, so the real question is whether waiting until morning costs you more than that in damage or hardship. For a leak, our leak repairs visit isolates and makes safe first; for a mixer that has lost its hot, a no hot water repair visit covers the shower valve as well as the boiler. The repair price is agreed with you on site before any work starts.

• Worth it tonight: a supply-side leak you cannot isolate, water reaching a ceiling or a light fitting, or a shower that is the only way an older, disabled, unwell or very young person in the home can wash.
• Tonight or first thing: a leak you have isolated at the main stopcock, which leaves the whole house without water until the pipe is repaired.
• Fine for a daytime booking: a dead or cold shower with a working bath or basin, a dripping head, a slow drain, weak flow, or a leak that only shows while the shower runs and stops when it is off.
• An electrician first, not a plumber: an electric shower that trips its breaker, sparks, or has a hot or discoloured switch.

Plumber, electrician or a new shower?

An electric shower has its own circuit from the consumer unit, with RCD protection and a double-pole isolating switch, which is the pull-cord or the wall switch outside. The cable, the breaker and that switch are an electrician’s work. In England, fitting a new shower circuit, or adding to or altering a circuit in a room with a bath or shower, is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations, so a registered electrician should do it and certify it. Going up in power, say from 8.5 kW to 10.5 kW, usually means a new cable and breaker, so it is never a straight swap. A plumber deals with the water side: the supply, the service valve, flow and leaks.

As typical market figures rather than our prices: a pressure relief device for a common electric shower is roughly £10 to £25 as a part, a thermostatic cartridge roughly £40 to £200 depending on the brand, and a replacement electric shower £100 to £350 for the unit. An electric shower well over ten years old with scale problems or scorching at its terminals is usually replaced rather than repaired. A mixer valve rarely needs replacing whole, because its wearing parts are the cartridge, the check valves and the seals.

Renting: how long can a broken shower wait?

In England a fixed shower is normally one of the installations your landlord must keep working under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Private tenancies have no fixed number of hours, only a reasonable time. If the shower is the only way to wash, it is usually treated like a loss of hot water and expected to be fixed within about 24 hours; with a working bath, a few days is more usual. Report it in writing with a photo and the date. Deadlines for social housing and what to do if nothing happens are in tenant rights with no hot water.