Hyco water heaters a bit crap?

[Tim Watts]

During house renovations (sigh) we have and will not have CH for a good while.

I've been using a Hyco 9.5kW inline multipoint heater to run 2 sinks and a bath - which is OK in itself.

However, they just don't last. First one blew one of its 2 elements just after a year and the 2nd one is going dicky - throwing the overheat cutout on a daily basis. I suspect the flow switch is getting sticky and not shutting it off cleanly.

OK - they are only £100 quid, but before I nip down to QVS and put yet anotherone in that will last slightly longer than the guarantee period, are there any 9.5-10kW units that are not crap?

These are inline, no water storage, really simple - not undersink types.

Cheers,

Tim

[Martin Brown]

Are you sure it isn't hard water limescale build up doing them in?

[Tim Watts]

We're not that hard here. Sure - there's a little, but the kettle only had a mild deposit after 3 years. It's harder than Pembury (so soft it doesn't even register on a hardness test kit) but a *lot* softer than south London.

And people don't replace electric showers every year...

What I do see when a hot tap is turned on full blast is small flakes of black "grit" that looks like it might be element plating falling off... Which is making wonder whether Hyco are just a bit crap.

I'm considering one of these:

it is a little more civilised in regulating the temperature.

[David WE Roberts]

We had an electric shower that used to do that - chuck black flakes out. Use to block the shower head so I had to give the whiole thing a full blast cold flush without the shower head on every now and then to clear it out.

Speaking of showers, any reason you can't use an electric shower body? Seems like the general principle is much the same.

[Tim Watts]

Interesting - I've not seen a shower do that.

Only, except that most showers are not designed to have the outlet shut off with a manual valve (tap) - so that could be bad as they would not be able to operate their cool down purge.

Wonder if that's how showers last longer...

Anyway, TLC have one of the Zip heaters in stock - inlet/outlet connections are of course reversed, but nothing a flexi tap hose won't fix :)

[David WE Roberts]

Showers never used to have a cool down purge, (our current one doesn't) but they certainly lasted longer than a year. AFAIK the older showers just have an off/cold/warm/hot control, plus a water throttle. However I do see that just using a remote tap will rely on the overheat protection unless you also implement a remote power switch so probably not the best idea.

[Scott M]

I installed a shower unit (ebay bargain!) as a water heater in a stable block before xmas. Plumbed it to the unused sink hot tap and then ensured that the tap couldn't be shut off. Works well.

Oddly enough, I then saw the exact same unit being used as one of those over-sink-water-heaters-with-spout affairs just days later.

[Martin Crossley]

My Redring Powerstream 9.5kW has survived 16 years including regular misuse filling the bath. Similar price from a couple of places I've just looked up, and a three-year guarantee. Martin.

[Phil L]

Why keep throwing good money after bad? - why not just install a cheapo combi and blank off the CH flow and return until you are ready to get the CH up and running?

You've already spent over 200 and are planning to spend another 100 - my combi from b&q cost me £280 and has been running perfectly for 5 years

[Tim Watts]

This was only supposed to be a temprary measure pre CH.

Installing a boiler is too hard right now (flue + flat roof mainly) so I don't have a lot of choice sadly. Bloody crap manufacturers...

[David WE Roberts]

Get an Aga - you know it makes sense ;-)

[Tim Watts]

Wouldn't work - bungalow - no convenient place to put the HW cylinder upstairs to ensure a gravity circuit works.

Yep - I've been through all the design :)

I'd have to say - the design of the Zip Inline looks much better than the crappy Hyco. Brass heating unit rather than plastic - and a reassuring Made in Germany. As ever, buying cheap shit is never worth it - although I only anticipated needing it for a year - then I got a job 60 miles away so house renovations are now *very* slow (little kids don't help - well they do, "she" just held some pipes in place while I did up the nuts, but we're not into +ve net gain territory yet...)

[m.r.suslowicz]

Suspect you were right on the flow switch. Mine did the opposite. Two years on the little reed switch on the inlet refused to operate and so all the elements failed to switch on. I emailed HYCO and they supplied me a New Part FOC . Top Guys !

[Tim Watts]

Hycos are shit in my personal experience - blew the element after little over a year.

[m.r.suslowicz]

Unfortunate that it just went out of guarantee , elements can be temperamen tal ! Yes a two year warrantee would be better to cover such occurrences . Some companies do offer this , some companies operate 'good will' and wi ll be understanding .. As I posted HYCO were very good with my heater and helped me out with fix FOC . The performance of the unit is really very goo d , and in my case I'm very happy with their product and service support .