Pulsacoil 2000 Electric Boiler issues...

I have just moved into an apartment as a tenant, the hot water for showers and taps is provided by a Pulsacoil 2000 boiler, the rooms are heated by electric heaters.

When I arrived at the property, I asked the agent for a manual for the usage of the boiler. She said to use google. There is however, a sentence about in the tenant guide for the property- "Either one or both switches can be used for hot water, these can be found on the wall next to the boiler."

I found some information about the thing on the www, and apparently the bottom switch is Economy 7 and the top one is the booster. Both switches were on when I arrived at the property for the first time. However, when the bottom one is switched on, it heats up the tank straight away without waiting for the Economy 7 period, same behaviour with the top switch. Once heated completely, it switches the heating off, but you can hear it come on every 10-15 minutes to keep topping up the heat - surely this is going to get very expensive using the electricity?

Another issue is the header tank above to keep the boiler topped up - when the boiler is on, this water in the header tank gets heated to at least the same temperature as the water coming out of the hot taps, is this correct, I thought these header tanks were supposed to be cold water? Being uninsulated, this transfers a lot - and I mean a lot - of heat energy to the rooms surrounding the boiler cupboard, including my bedroom, which can make it difficult to sleep at times. Again, this must be a tremendous waste of electricity.

As I have just moved into the property, I am unsure of the electricity tariff until I get my first bill from the supplier, but I do have a two rate meter system. I am also not used to using all the hot water in a ten minute shower - is this normal behaviour too? I can understand the boiler tank being emptied in this time, but my last property had a super duper gas boiler that provided hot water on demand from cold as soon as the tap was switched on and never seemed to run cold.

Thanks for reading, and any advice as to whether this is normal behaviour, or whether I should get in touch with the agent to find a plumber.

Reply to
John Smith
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It sounds wrong. The best thing would be for your agent to get in a plumbing & heating engineer with enough clue to sort out how the system is supposed to work and make it do so properly.

Reply to
YAPH

There is a possibility that the bottom immersion is connected to the "day rate" wiring and the top one to the "night rate" wiring. Stupid people do stupid things. Do you have any electrical knowledge at all? It would be simpe to check if you have a voltage tester.

It is also a possibility that your peak/off peak switching system is out of time with the actual time and off-peak rate power is being delivered during full rate times. This might be to your fiscal advantage until a devout meter reader notices and resets the metering time control. Depends if you have one meter with two readings or two separate meters as was common.

Simple solution lag the whole thing but make sure your ballfloat is copper as a plastic one may fail in hot water

Phone your supplier and ask them what tariff you are on

I would be concerned I was wasting a lot of water unneccessarily if I used all the hot contained in the tank during ten minutes. Is it a drench shower? If not you probably start with only part of the tank holding hot water.

If you are still unhappy ask the agent to investigate and be prepared for the agent to use the cheapest tradesman not the best so may have to argue your case. Even some electricity suppliers employees are not as competent as they should be.

Reply to
cynic

My Mother has one of these and the top up tank should definitely be cold. It sounds as though the boiler is over heating.

Is the green lamp on? The red lamp indicates a fault.

Are you sure you have economy 7? It is possible to connect them to run off peak rate only.

Gledhill used to have manuals for the Pulsa coil 2000 but they only have the BP version online now but this is similar. Link below:

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this helps when you call your Landlord. The boiler needs a specialist repairer by the way.

Reply to
chudford

Thanks - but don't want to have the agent call in a plumber if there's nothing wrong with it! Agree it sounds wrong though!

Marcus

Reply to
John Smith

Don't have one, but I thought to test it by trying each in turn. Top one works at same time as bottom one when each are on individually.

Two meters in the basement. Currently on standard tariff of about 17p for day rate and 4p for night rate.

Lag the whole thing? The header tank is separate from the boiler - connected by pipes. It has a plastic float.

Standard Tariff - whatever that means. £3.50 p/m standing charge, approx 17p day rate and 4p night rate. Not really up on what is the best tariff for me, but still, if the bottom element is supposed to be using night rate electricity, it shouldn't be coming on during the day.

Drench shower? It has a mixer tap and good temperature can be obtained with approx 50-50 hot cold mix. Putting the booster (top) element on whilst shower is running has no effect on duration of hot water. It takes a while for hot water to come through, apparently this is normal.

Noted, thanks.

Reply to
John Smith

Yes, I thought so - especially as it has a plastic float which could end up melting and flooding the flat.

Never seen the red light on, not even flashing. Steady green light only.

I don't know. Have two rate meter and tariff. Just the boiler says on the front that one element should be using the cheaper night rate electricity. Which means it should not be coming on during the day.

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> Hope this helps when you call your Landlord. The boiler needs a

Thought it might. Thanks!

Reply to
John Smith

Its a thermal store electric wet appliance. It could be connected to radiators around the house rather than having electric heaters. Yours only performs the function of supplying hot water on demand, with no radiators. but to get hot water on demand you need the thermal store to be up to temperature. You will need to set the timer to approx half hour before you need hot water then off when you dont, and back on again when you get back from work, and off again. The circulation of the f&e tank is probably because it is constantly on stand-by waiting for a pump to kick in to circulate non existant radiators.

Reply to
topper

The header tank part being hot sounds clue enough that all is not well.

Reply to
YAPH

Ah! lurking at the back of my mind was this fellow:

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it's not another of my aliases, but another engineer working in the same geographical area (Reading) as me. Never met the guy but he sounds quite clued up.)

Reply to
YAPH

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I'm not sure I'd call that a boiler but I'd be happy to give it a service anyway.

Reply to
YAPH

There is no timer, just two switches for the top/bottom elements, either on or off.

Reply to
John Smith

Yes, I found that a couple of days ago and posted on his forum about the problem, but not had any responses yet.

Marcus

Reply to
John Smith

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