We're having a loft conversion, with an en-suite shower room. We're looking at showers and getting confused. The plumber is not particularly helping, so I thought I'd throw it out to the empeg brain trust.

Our existing bathroom has a mixer shower. The house has a combi boiler.

We've ruled out a power shower because you can't use them with combi boilers apparently. Is this true?

Similarly, we can't really use another mixer shower, because the combi won't be able to provide enough hot water if both showers are running.

This leads us to look at electric showers. My understanding is that they're only connected to mains-pressure cold water, which doesn't go anywhere near the combi boiler. Is this correct?

Given this, our plumber's assertion that we won't be able to use the mixer and the combi at the same time seems a little odd, given that the mains water pressure seems to be plenty high.

I'm confused. Can we use an electric shower or not? Can we use it at the same time as the mixer shower?

Another question: I saw a recommendation (in Which? magazine, I believe) that recommended thermostatic controls. These, theoretically, deal with a drop in the water pressure and maintain the temperature, so that you don't get alternately frozen and boiled when someone runs the cold tap in the kitchen. However, given that the electric shower runs from a single, cold, feed, what's the point?

And, while I'm here, does anyone have any shower recommendations?