Immersion heater wired to be permanently on ?

mihnea

Hi,
I just moved into a newa apartment and am super confused by the water heater situation.It's a massive tank with blue insulation on it and an open top. The only switch it has is labelled Standby/Duty. From this switch come out 2 wires that connect to 2 immersion heating elements on the tank, one at the top and one at the bottom. I cannot yet post photos as I'm a new user, unfortunately.

Now, I've had the switch in both positions for 3 days each and i've had continuous boiling water regardless. This makes me think the heater is never actually turning off and it's just switching elements.

There is also a breaker labelled water heater in the fuse box, but obviously I can't really use this as a switch daily.

How on earth do I turn this off? I obviously don't want it on 24/7. Or do I have to tell my landlord to install a timer ?
Thanks.

jk0

The lower immersion should only come on overnight. The top one should only be used if you run out of hot water, as it will be working on full price electricity.


Can you post the name/ link to the controller, so we can give more guidance?

mihnea

Here's some photos: https:// imgur.com/a/EHX2CMi (you'll have to take that space out because I cant post url's

Cardew

As stated above, the lower immersion heater should not be on(i.e. live) during the day.


If you fill a bath during the day you can check the electricity meter and ensure that it is not registering a large load.

Cardew

Cardew

jk0

There looks to be a black box with wires attached in the airing cupboard. Can we see a photo of that?

mihnea

That is an Antiference box for the TV, so unrelated. There is also another switch to the back of the wall. That says "Extractor fan".

Talldave

My first guess is that standby switches off the top heating element and duty switches it on. It'll be wired to the normal output from your electricity meter and so can operate at any time of the day.

My second guess is that the bottom heating element is connected to the night rate output of your Economy 7 meter and is energised for 7 hours a night and heats the whole tank of water.

Suggestion - if you don't need the full tank every day, get an electrician to fit timers to both heating elements and just use the top one for an hour in the early morning whilst E7 night rate is still active. An electrician would also advise if those immersion heater elements have a temperature setting under that cover. If not, replace them with ones that do?

Simby

I think the op wants to turn it off entirely I.e no hot water.

I can’t figure it out from the pictures .. but a system that you cannot turn off seems to be an issue.

I personally have no hot water in the taps in summer as I do not use the immersion at all and have an electric shower. This issue would really frustrate me so would to hear the fix for the op

mihnea

Exactly, thanks. Basically since we have no timer I have no issue turnig it on myself for 1h or 2 when I need it and then off again by hand. But it seems that's not an option unless I do it from the breaker (yes, bad idea, i know)