No Hot water

Ladybird20

I have a hot water tank that runs off economy seven or i can overide that and turn it on as normal,, however i am not getting hot water anymore it is cold,,i had a freind round the other day and he pressed a trip switch on the thermostat which gave me hot water again,,however today i have no hot water again ..i do not want to have to keep pressing this "red trip button" on the thermostat as clearly somthing is wrong,,,do i call for an electrician or a plumber or a service engineer who is familiar in the repairing of cylinder??thanks guys in advance as i do not want to call out wrong person as they dont know really how to fixx the problem,,,,,,,thanks in advance for any replies...

Browntoa

I suspect the element is failing ,

www.reuk.co.uk/OtherImages/Immersion-Heater1.jpg



it's the part at an angle going down from the top , the metal outer bit has corroded and is shorting out

a plumber would do it

not the most expenive of parts , this may not be the exact one for yours

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/43913/Plumbing/Hot-Water-Cylinders/Resettable-Long-Life-Immersion-Heater-11

Ladybird20

so is it a plumber i need then???? i would hate to call one out get charged for it only to need a electrician,,thank you for your reply and your illustrations and links

Fred_Bear_2

I had this problem recently. If the red trip button on the thermostat is tripping it is because the thermostat thinks it is overheating and switches off for safety. If the element has corroded it would cause an earth leak and the RCD in the consumer unit would trip (or if you don't have an RCD then the circuit breaker would trip or the fuse would blow). In my case replacing the thermostat cured the problem. It's a simple job for an electrician. HTH

Ladybird20

you see now i dont know if i need a plumber or electrician???also the said thermostat was a new one in january when the water first started to play up..thank you for your replies,,,,,

Fred_Bear_2

Ladybird, let me give you the full story. An electrician replaced a corroded immersion heater and fitted a new thermostat at the same time. (New thermostats have the safety cut-out that trips if the water overheats.) The thermostat started to trip from time to time so another one was fitted. This tripped as well. Eventually I bought another one from a different shop and fitted this myself (probably illegally) and this has worked ever since. Another electrician has checked my work since and it was ok. So it seems that, in my case, there were two faulty thermostats, maybe from a faulty batch. As to your question, plumber or electrician, an electrician would still be required to fit a new immersion heater so the answer is electrician whatever the fault is. IMHO of course.
Please let us know how you get on and what the solution was.

Ladybird20

thanks for that.....Fred Bear

Ladybird20

...electrician came today said thermostat at the bottom was turned right down???????and the one at the top was broken,,so he has ordered one to be fitted some time this week,,the one that he has ordered is the one that kept tripping out,,,,,,,,i wander if it had to compensate for the bottom thermostat not being turned up?????

beefster

Not really... it would only have to stay on longer.
It is either on or off.
The red button is a temperature cut out. It shuts the heater element off to prevent over heating / boiling. The thermostat measures the temperature it does not do the heating. The heater element does that.
I would assume you have 2 thermostats and 2 heater elements??

If so they (if working correctly) work in tandem. If the bottom one is turned up it should heat the water up to the temp indicated on the dial. It will just take longer as you only have half the heating capacity with the top one out of action.
But as its been turned down the top one has been doing the heating anyway. No need for a plumber as this does break into any water system. That is only required when removing the heater element itself.

Ladybird20

mmmmm now thats confused me even more,,,,,,as before the water was cold altogether