What are these switches?

tigercub1212

Hello,

I’ve moved into a new flat and have these two switches under the stairs. Does anyone have any idea what they are? 

We have a ZIP RCH water heater that is on the other side of the wall to one of the switches and an electric shower so wondered if they could be for them (our electric shower doesn’t have a pulley to turn it on and we can’t find a switch for our water heater anywhere else). 

Thanks!

tim_p

turn them off and go around and see what doesn’t work - shower for example. Should be fairly easy to pin them down doing that. That’s certainly what I’d be doing. 

Ildhund

There's a switch high up on the wall by my bathroom door. I didn't notice it until the electric shower stopped working, but it's just an extra one outside the wet environment that feeds to the pull switch inside. So that may explain one of your two.

I've also seen cases where the hot water tank has two feeds, one to the main immersion heater element at the bottom of the tank and the other to a secondary immersion heater higher up. The main element is only active in offpeak hours during the night, but the secondary one has a switch of its own so it can be used to heat up the top third of the tank or so if somebody uses all the hot water. The last I saw had this boost switch in the kitchen, a long way from the tank itself. So, could this be your arrangement? 

If there's only one element in the hot water tank, there will be a switch for it somewhere. That's what your second mystery switch could be. If that's the case, you might want to restrict how long it's on for - a tankful of hot water should keep you going for a day or two without needing reheating, so all that's happening if it's always on is that the cupboard where the tank is will be really warm and so will all the small creatures in the space above the cupboard.

As tim_p suggests, more snooping required.