Hello
I have an issue with my immersion heater I was hoping the group might be able to help me with. I am on Economy 7 and since the clocks went back, the immersion heater is not heating the water up to it's normal temperature. I am not sure if it is a problem with the heating element or the timer on the heater, I have had a look at the thermostat and it is set to 50.
Have you got any ideas about to fix it please?
TIA M
You will have to be more specific about the setup. Have you got a seperate timer for the immersion that runs off the economy 7 tarrif? It may be that you are calling for heat when the electricity is not available.
I would also say that 50 degree on an immersion is not hot enough. Up it to
Adam
Hi Adam, I don't have a separate timer, the Economy 7 timer runs off the electricity box outside, so Powergen have informed me.
I have upped the thermostat to 60c as suggested.
Thanks.
Michelle.
I suggest that you look at the time setting on your suppliers timeswitch. I went to a house last night when she reported a problem with her off peak heating to find that at 7pm the clock was indicating 1am, hence her off peak was coming on when it should have been going off!
Peter
The good news is that it is not going to be a problem with the heating element - they basically work or don't work and, if the water is getting hot at all, yours is working.
The obvious thing is that your Economy 7 isn't coming on and going off when it should.
As others have suggested, if you can find the time-switch and understand what time it thinks it is and when it thinks it should put Economy 7 on and off, then great. Compare those to what hours you should be getting.
However, if you can't understand the time-switch, there is a plan B - although it means getting up at odd hours for a couple of nights..
Hopefully, something connected to the Economy 7 (say the immersion heater itself, or night storage heaters) either has a little light on it that lights when it gets power, or has a little light on the isolator switch near to it.
So stay up with a couple of movies, bottles of wine and someone to share them with and finish it off with a champagne breakfast... Oh, and now and then go and see if the little lights are on or not. You may want to turn it into a little something you do every year..
Or, boringly, set an alarm clock over a few nights to odd times and stagger up and check the little lights.. before staggering back to bed and getting those cold feet warmed up.
If those little adventures shows that the Economy 7 isn't coming on and going off roughly when it should - then the electricity people will come and fix it.
If it is - then it must either be that the thermostat is defective or you have very intelligent and strong mice who don't like the airing cupboard to be too hot..Or..
The beauty of checking the lights on storage heaters as well as the immersion heater is that it could show that one is getting power when the other isn't and that there is a timer somewhere that you didn't know about. It does happen. One flat I was in did have a timer for the hot water - but the landlord had put it in the loft..Doubtless to stop naughty tenants, like me, altering it to give more that two hours of hot water a day..
HTH
Thank you Sue for your comprehensive and humourous reply, I have had the meter replaced by Powergen so here's hoping it will do the trick. I was out when they did it so I am not sure whether they actually found a fault or just decided to replace it anyway.
I will report back tomorrow.
Thanks again Michelle.
You are very welcome. Can I suggest that you take your own meter readings from the new meter asap (if they haven't been left on a card by the installers). And phone those readings (and ideally the final readings of the old meter) into your electricity supplier asap too?
Saves argument when they get the bills wrong...
Hi all
It turned out that the lower immersion heater had died, so I had them both replaced and now have lovely hot water and a very quiet night's sleep as the heater is almost noiseless when it comes on at 1am. I was charged =A3211 for 2 hours work, draining the tank and replacing the heaters, does this sound reasonable ?
Thanks for the input on the problem. Michelle.
No idea, but, although paying that much may not have made your day, it has cheered me up immensely - being brought up as a tomboy has saved me lots of dosh, apparently.
Screwfix has immersion heaters of various lengths for about £10 each. So that is say £190 for labour, or almost £100 an hour.
Who pays when the tank splits?
Adam
You do.
Bobby
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