I know nothing of Irish dual-element immersers, but putting the thermostat in the neutral line would allow it to operate, limiting the temperature, regardless of whether one or the other elements (or both) were switched on.
Peth eth eth eth eth chris waddle...
Jim K
Very Irish - and terribly non-fail-safe if you were to get a neutral-earth fault in one (or both) elements on the load side of the 'stat with no RCD in the feed.
Not LVD-compliant IMO - single fault condition leads to a dangerous situation.
It's something that's been slipped under the radar for years and I've not heard of any fatalities because of it. Not to say it hasn't happened, though. Oddly, the Irish regs are quite tight on some things - like no combined cooker/socket faceplates and RCD on everything now, but the unprotected neutral-statted dual immersion continues - probably because there are hundreds of thousands of them in use.
As the OP, I'm a little surprised at your comment, as I would not have thought immersion heaters in Ireland were actually made in the country. I looked at the damaged unit my plumber took out, and there is no manufactur's name or country of origin on it, as far a I can see.
There is just a label with
---------------------- RoHS (ticked)
240V~ 3KW 230V~ 2.7KW D 27"E + DST TIH 465---------------------- on it.
I take it RoHS is some kind of standard which the unit adheres to?
Mostly, they are.
Made to some kind of recycling/eco standard, essentially.
Reduction of Hazardous Substances. Another law inspired by the EU.
The makers must use lead free solder in soldered joints (if any), and guarantee that the device, whatever it is, is not to contain some other stuff.
"The six substances prohibited by the RoHS directive: ? Pb (lead) ? Cadmium ? Hg (mercury) ? Cr+6 (hexavalent chromium) ? PBB (polybrominated biphenyls of specified bromine flame retardants) ? PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers of specified bromine flame retardants)"
So, that's NiCd batteries (Cadmium), any fluorescent lamp (Mercury), and most of the really effective flame retardants banned, then...
Strangely enough, PTFE is still allowed to be use for electrical insulation in some places, despite it decomposing under heat to produce, among other things, hydroflouric acid, which, to put it mildly, is not nice stuff.
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