showers All aspects of plumbing questions and answers, help, tips and information

[broughts]

HI.When buying a shower unit what does KW mean? for example 8.5kw. thanks

[C23kW]

its mean the power output the shower. this wll be electrically wired and if you had an electric shower before and the Kw was less then buying an 8.5 Kw shower, might mean changing the wiring to the shower from the Db (consumer unit). If firstly installing then the manufacturers instructions will help you with wire sizes etc.

[plumbbob]

Kw equals kilowatt hours. Basically, the bigger the KW, the larger the element and consequently the more water can be heated at once so the better the shower.

Showers range from about 7.0 kw up to 10.5 kw with 8.5 being the most common.

A 10 kw shower would use 10 units of electricity in one hour, or 5 units in half an hour etc.