heating help please

bonar

i have a new house which has both gas central heating/water heating and also electric immersion heater. we have been using electric for water heating, scottish gas came last week to do yearly gas boiler service since then immersion not working. water does heat up with gas though.

any ideas what could be the problem? and can we fix ourselves as i cant see scottish gas coming out to fix.

energysavingexp

check the fuse

bonar

thanks I have a fuse switch next to the electric switch in the kitchen do you mean there?

energysavingexp

yes also check the fuse box. also follow the flex back from the immersion heater and does it go to a little white box near the cylinder this might also have a fuse in it

bonar

I did find a white box with a thermostat and also I think a reset button, shall try this thanks again

rogerblack

The heating elements also may need replaced - they do blow every so often.
This is generally possible to fix yourself, but you do need to be comfortable with plumbing and electricity.

macman

Why use an immersion to heat your hot water when it costs you about 250% more than heating it using your gas boiler? It's intended as a back up.

chris1973

Check these in order...

(1) There will normally be a fuse in the switch where you turn on the immersion heater. normally it will look something like this




If it has a little red or amber light on the switch itself, and it lights up when you switch it on, then skip straight to number 3!. If it doesn't light up then continue with (2)


(2) If there isn't a fuse in there, or the fuse is ok, then check the consumer unit. The immersion heater will be on its own circuit. If its a modern consumer unit then the immersion heater will be on a 16A or 20A circuit breaker, and will probably be marked as such. If you still have the old fuseboard then it will normally be on a 15A fuse - usually these have two blue spots on the outside. If you have the old type fusebox make sure you turn off the main switch before attempting to 'pull' the fuse out to check it.

(3) Press the little red reset switch on the immersion element itself. This is an over-temperature cut out which clicks out and switches off the element if the tank is overheating. If this happens on a regular basis normally it means that the main wired thermostat has 'stuck' or failed and will need to be replaced.

If all of the above doesn't bring a soluation, then time to call a plumber / electrician to replace the element itself.

bonar

thanks for the help, the reason we use the immersion for water is that it is far cheaper than our gas. we get gas from a lpg tank in the village, supplied by flogas, price is extortionate, unable to change as whole village needs to change supplier.

macman

I think you'll still find that electricity is more per kWh than LPG. Not sure how up to date this is:
http://www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk/portal/page?_pageid=75,59188&_dad=portal

bonar

thank you for this however we turned the gas off at beginning of the year and have found it is by far cheaper to run the electric, so far this year we are more than happy with the money saved its been well worth it flogas is very expensive and price keeps rising.