Originally Posted By: mlord
Yeah, that sounds familiar -- lukewarm (not hot) showers have been the norm at just about all of the B&Bs we've visited in England and Europe.

Those are also the source of my question about noise -- there's quite a loud low-freq buzz from something when we're shivering in those showers! smile

If the buzz comes from nearby, that's a pump in the shower -- a so-called "power shower". Like computer fans, small pumps are noisier than big ones. (My shower screams like a turbine.)

It's possibly also to do with the fact a power shower pumps "new" water the whole time -- unlike a heating pump which pumps the same water round and round a closed system -- which means that it's more susceptible to limescale and other corrosion or deposition, causing noisy operation.

Some power showers are also heaters, but most just pressurise hot water from a tank system. (You can't have a non-heater power shower with a combi boiler, because you'd be pumping mains pressure, but conversely you don't need a power shower with a combi boiler, because the hot water is already at mains pressure.)

Peter