Economy 7 water heater problems, help please!

[Deleted User]

Hi,


I would shut the output dial down, it's usually used in the evening to release more heat, though in all my time with storage heaters it was never opened.

rosamy52

Okay thanks, good to know re the output dial.

EachPenny

rosamy52 wrote: »

The landlord's been round and tried a few things. He's a builder by trade and built all of this development. He's going to call in the electricity board to check there's enough power going through and to check the meters etc. He's also taken photos and is contacting heating engineers and said that my email yesterday was helpful, which had several suggestions from this thread. He's also taken photos of the meter's day and nighttime readings to see what's registering on that. He was apologetic and very nice and wants to get this sorted for me so that's good.

I'm not sure he is going to get very far with this - if there is electricity getting to the storage heaters then there is no obvious reason why anything to do with the electricity company's equipment would be an issue.

The fault seems to be narrowed down to something between the immersion heater swich on "DB2" and the main heating element on the hot water tank.

rosamy52 wrote: »

I'm literally praying it does get sorted soon, it's beginning to stress me out!

At the end of the day it isn't your problem to sort out, you just need to make sure the landlord is dealing with it.

The one other thing you could do would be to use the 'boost' switch to heat up enough hot water for your daily needs. As I said yesterday, in my experience this element alone should give you most of what you need for a day unless you use a lot of hot water.

At this time of year (if you have 'normal' E7 hours) you should still have E7 rates until about 8:30am. You'll know exactly when because the red LED on the meter marked "100A" will be on during the cheap time and switch off (usually with a 'clunk' noise) at the end of E7 hours.

If you tend to get up early, then switch the boost element on at the wall as soon as you get up, perhaps setting an alarm for 8:15 so you don't forget to switch it off. If the 100A LED on the meter is still lit then you might want to wait for a bit to confirm it goes off at 8:30.

Around 45 minutes on boost ought to be enough time to give you a reasonable amount of hot water.... although it would be a bit of a chore to do this, you would at least have less stress over the lack of any hot water.

rosamy52

Thanks, some good and helpful points there. Sure enough NPower weren't willing to send anyone out. I'll let the landlord know re the likelihood of the problem being "The fault seems to be narrowed down to something between the immersion heater swich on "DB2" and the main heating element on the hot water tank."

Yes I could try that re the boost. I have CFS ME though and need to make the most of the sleep I do get, I'll try though. And like you say it's worth setting an alarm to remember to turn the boost off. I can always go back to bed I suppose!

rosamy52

As the landlord was leaving yesterday he asked me to feel the big metal rings behind the thermostats. I did this morning and the bottom one was stone cold and the top one cool. That's also with the booster having being on between 7-8:15. What does that mean please?

The warm water still ran out quickly though, it was barely enough for a shallow bath of maybe 4-4.5 inches. It reminded me what real baths are like briefly, I miss them!

System

rosamy52 wrote: »

As the landlord was leaving yesterday he asked me to feel the big metal rings behind the thermostats. I did this morning and the bottom one was stone cold and the top one cool. That's also with the booster having being on between 7-8:15. What does that mean please?

The warm water still ran out quickly though, it was barely enough for a shallow bath of maybe 4-4.5 inches. It reminded me what real baths are like briefly, I miss them!

The bottom 'metal ring' relates to the bottom immersion heater which provided you have left the switch in the ON position should heat during the low cost period. There are a number of reasons why this isn't working which range from a failed immersion heater; a failed thermostat through to a wiring fault. It needs to be checked by an electrician. The 'booster' immersion heater normally sits about a 1/3 top from the top of the cylinder: it is not designed to heat the whole of the tank. Clearly, this one is working.

rosamy52

Great, thanks. So from that it sounds like the bottom thermostat for the overnight definitely isn't working. That's good in that the problem is being narrowed down. I hope that the landlord gets a different electrician as the current one doesn't seem to acknowledge there's a problem and says everything's working.

molerat

rosamy52 wrote: »

Great, thanks. So from that it sounds like the bottom thermostat for the overnight definitely isn't working. That's good in that the problem is being narrowed down. I hope that the landlord gets a different electrician as the current one doesn't seem to acknowledge there's a problem and says everything's working.

On 7th October in your last thread I posted

There are 2 heaters on the tank, the white disc things actually on the silver tank. The whole tank is heated overnight on cheap rate electricity using the lower heater and if you use all that you can boost enough for washing up etc using the top heater on day rate electricity. You will not get enough for a bath using the top heater especially if the thermostat is set to its lowest setting. Is the lower heater turned on ? You should get a nice tank of hot water in the morning, when you get up touching the brass bit between the tank and white cap should be a good indication if the heater is working.

Changing the immersion element can be a total pain and can, in a worst case scenario, results in needing a new tank especially if the person changing it is a bit of a cowboy!

EachPenny

rosamy52 wrote: »

Great, thanks. So from that it sounds like the bottom thermostat for the overnight definitely isn't working. That's good in that the problem is being narrowed down. I hope that the landlord gets a different electrician as the current one doesn't seem to acknowledge there's a problem and says everything's working.

No, just to be clear, from what you've described the conclusion so far is there is a fault between the switch (RCBO) on the consumer unit "DB2" and the immersion heater.

The problem could be any one of the items between DB2 and the immersion heater, or a combination of items. That possibly includes the thermostat, but might be something else as well as, or instead of.

As suggested by others already, the electrician needs to test everything in the circuit. This will be made slightly more complicated because DB2 will only have power during E7 hours, so unless he visits you overnight, he would need to know what else he needs to do to carry out a full functionality test of the system.

Based on what you've said so far it sounds like the electrician might be part of the problem... so let's hope the landlord decides to get another one.

rosamy52

Hi, thanks to you and the last poster. I've contacted the landlord this morning by email with those thoughts and am hoping to hear back from him soon. If I don't I'll call the office.

Thanks again!