Immersion heater

aggietrac

Can anyone help me? My immersion heater was making a funny noise and the switch got really hot! The tank is a decent size but there is never enough water for a bath and when I have a bath I usually have to leave it to heat twice to get a decent hot bath. It used to be on a timer, but that kept making a funny noise and the immersion flooded water out of the top a few times so my landlady removed it and now I just have a switch on the wall. Why is the switch getting red hot?

CLAPTON

Its probably because the thermostat is faulty.... this can be extremely serious and needs checking out... it can lead to hot water and stream going up the overflow and causing the main (cold) tank to become hot.... you may recall there was a very tragic case in the west county where the 'cold' water tank burst and scolded a little child who subsequently died.

You should be able to tell because
a, the water from the hot tap would become too hot
and b. if yu have access to the 'cold' water tank you can check to see if the overlow pipe is issuing hot water or steam or indeed if the tank is becoming hot.

a new thermostat is only a few pounds but needs an electrician to fix it.

Premier_2

You appear to have 2 problems here that we can address.

1. The immersion fails to heat enough water for a bath.
This implies that the immersion heater element is too short. See this post for more details.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11578709&postcount=3
As you appear to have a top mounted immersion heater it should be a dual element one as illustrated in the above link.
So either you are not switching to the longer element to heat enough water for a bathful, or the longer element doesn't even work. It could even be that the heater has been replaced by a short single element heater only!

2. The switch is getting very hot.
As I understand it, the switch is wall mounted i.e. away from the heater itself. This implies a significant safety risk is occurring. An immersion heater is usually rated at 3kw and should be protected by a suitable fuse fuse/circuit breaker (e.g. 15A at the main fuse box).
Obviously all wiring and switches must be at least similarly rated. There could be a wiring fault or perhaps a dodgy worksman has used a 5A rated light switch to control the 13A immersion heater!
You need to have the installation checked as a matter of urgency by a qualified electrician.

Btw, both of the above issues are really the responsibilty of the landlady to rectify

As regards the issues with your flatmate, sorry, I think those can only be resolved by the 2 of you talking together.


Edit: Whoops, missed the bit about hot water boiling over as well.
This could be as Clapton correctly suggests be due to a faulty thermostat, or perhaps one that is simply turned up too high. Again, insist that the landlady addresses this issue too by employing a qualified electrican/plumber.

mute_posting

OP

AFTER you have the above issues fixed and the system is working properly, as you have economy 7, it will probably be cheaper to heat the whole tank (once) over night at the cheap rate instead of just heating the top part 2 or 3 times per day at the expensive rate.

Your LL really needs to get the system fixed though - including the timer, thermostat and switch.

MP

EDIT

BTW a well lagged tank will only loose a couple of degrees over 12 hours so even if it is heated over night and you are not using the water until the evening you shouldn't really need to "top-up" at peak rate unless you are using more hot water than is stored in the tank.