Electric instant water? What's the catch?

rothers8080

Our immersion heater recently packed up so I wired up our 9.5kw shower to the sinks and it seems to work fine, I was even astonished to realise it will fill the bath with hot water at a good rate.So instead of replacing the old immersion heater I've been looking around for an instant water electric solution, but all the ones I find which say they can fill a bath are either in the USA or Europe (seems Poland make a lot of these), nowhere in the UK will say anything more than a shower or hand basin. Even a 12.5kw one I found with multiple points said shower/kitchen/bathroom sinks.

What's the catch here? Are they not legal for a bath? Surely this is MUCH cheaper than heating that huge tank in the loft and letting it cool thus wasting hot water every day?

There is no gas where we live and never likely to be, so I want to get the solution right before we spend a few hundred pounds

Anyone have any experience with them?

Oh, one final weird issue, I can only access these forums via a proxy, my ISP (pipex) seems to block them after a few clicks on the site with a netword timeout error.

Thanks,

Craig

Cardew

There are plenty of instant hot water heaters of around 10kW on the market and there are posts from people on this forum from people who use them.

Anything more than 9.5kW will require new heavy duty wiring and an uprated RCB as it will draw more than 40 amps. Given the new regulations on electrical work in domestic properties(DIY is not allowed) you are talking about serious money to get one fitted in your bathroom.

In winter you might well find that the water flow will be reduced considerably as the inlet water temperature is much lower.

Actually a well lagged hot water tank loses surprisingly little heat(especially as most people have it in an airing cupboard and not the loft). Tests show that a tank full of Hot Water will lose about 3kWh in 24 hours. Using your immersion heater on a timer will reduce this considerably.

How do you heat your property? Oil will be cheaper than daytime electricity and you can also use an Immersion heater on an Economy 7 tariff.