Hi,
My lodger has just had a 2nd storage heater break down on her (I replaced the 1st one having been unsuccessful in trying to cure the problem by replacing the input thermostat).
She had been covering the heater with her towel.
Would this cause the heater to fail?
If yes, is there typically a specific peice of equipment that fails.
All advice gratefully received....
Steve
There is normally a overheat fusible link, which should fail if the heater is covered when it is taking on heat.
-On 16 Jan 2006 07:10:50 -0800 someone who may be "Steve" wrote this:-
I would hope so. One alternative to this is that she might burn your house down. Which would you prefer?
Other than heaters designed for drying things, such as towel rails, electric heaters should not be covered. At best the heater will just discolour what is placed on it, due to the high surface temperatures. At worst it will set fire to what is covering the heater, or set the heater itself on fire. Ventilation slots are provided for a reason and should not be blocked.
Towel rails that fit onto certain makes/models of storage heater are available. One can also get towel rails that fit onto the wall behind the heater. One can also get drying racks that can stand on the floor.
Same happened to mine 22 years ago when I covered one of them when it was in the "Charging" cycle which was 00:00 hours to 08:00 hours. The thermal fuse at the top blew, the replacement was a couple of =A3's I seem to remember. There are different temperature ratings for these thermal fuses.
The problem did not occur again as I installed a full C/H system as they were SOOooo expensive to run.
Chris.
Thanks to all for the responses! Very useful.
It's a thermal cut-out. It's resettable by pressing a button.
It is:
a) Hard to find if you don't know where it is.
b) Even harder to determine that you've actually reset it.
tim
First off, never cover a storage heater. Our place was nearly burnt down by someone covering an old heater a few years back. The only plus point was it prompted me to replace all the heaters with new models with a thermal cut out.
If its a newer style dimplex there is a small reset switch (metal tab) behind a sliding cover which is access by removing the from panel. You MUST make sure the heater is isolated before you do this though as there are lots of "live" parts under the cover.
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