Storage Heaters E7 ( me again)

[cynic]

Where are you that electricians are so hard to come by?

Can you get your hands on a clip-on amp-meter from ebay if nothing else. This would enable you to check the current drawn by the heater. It will require access to one of the individual Line or Neutral wires inside the cable or local isolating switch (beware of the little men running up your arm). A 3.4kW heater should be drawing around 14.2 Amps but if the supply voltage is nearer 230v than 240v which would be the basis for an older model it will be lower around 13.6 If the heater is the culprit a higher current would be passing. The type of fuse or circuit breaker at the supply will influence how much current can actually pass without operating (blowing) the fuse or tripping the circuit breaker. An old rewirable fuse rated at 15Amps will pass close on 30Amps for hours without operating so you cannot rely on the fuse recognising a defect. I'm still suspicious of a branch off the circuit which you do not know about. Checking the current passing out of the fusebox to the heater and comparing it with the current arriving at the heater would prove this one way or another. You could also monitor the current in the meter tails as you switch loads on or off although for off peak this will involve going to bed late or getting up early

[ARWadworth]

Bon't blame Maggie for this one. Your house is your house. Local electric companies never worked for free in a house. The electric co (private or public) have only ever supplied houses with an electric supply. What you do with that supply is up to you.

Turn everything off (I mean everything), and then turn on one known load, ie your heater. The meter will show how many units per hour the heater is using if this is the only appliance turned on. It should take you one hour at an inconvinient time of the day and you will need a torch.

Adam

[endymion]

I do blame Maggie. Not for my house being my house but because even though its my house I could get an electrician if I paid for it from SWEB before privateization ( and I did twice). Now I cant find one willing to come out at all.

I suppose it depends where you live to an extent but I know there are electricians but they simply dont want the kind of work we are talking here. They want simple ( and big as I suppose) jobs - like re wire ( or better still just plain wire) a whole house. Or maybe if you are lucky put an extra socket in.

Anything else forget it! Its the same with carpenters and even plumbers to be honest. You can get a decorator easily but a plasterer is a bit of a job. They tend to be expensive and often no show or " terminators" - all be back - b ut they never do come back.

What we seem to have a lot of ( and dont need in my area) is IT and web designers and salesmen for double glazing etc ( and no workmen once they get the orders!) and graduates in naff subjects are ten a penny and working in Tesco and co op stacking shelves.

That said, most firms wont employ enough tradesmen and that is another reason you seem to end up waiting. I have asked a couple of electrical repair firms and maintenance firms to send an electrician and they too have let me down.

Now my husband is looking at it. But we still cant find anything. he rang Creda and they said that the fault that we thought might be on that heater was one they had met before. Apparently it will wack three times the electric if it stops working. So we think its the heater still.

But I shall let you know when we have done all the working out.

[dennis]

Don't fret, now the government has started a recession there will be plenty of out of work plumbers, brickies, electricians and every other trade looking for jobs to prop up their benefits.

Anyway all your problem needs is a bit of common sense and some test kit.

Think about buying one of these

a simplified clamp on meter that works out how much power you are using. Then you can just turn stuff on and off until you find the problem.

You don't have to put the sensor around the meter tails, you can fit it around any circuit if you want.

[Andy Wade]

Some misunderstanding here, I think. A fault in the heater causing it to draw three times the rated current is conceivable (short-circuit across part of an element) but very unlikely in practice. If such a fault did occur then your 24 kWh (3.4 kW) rated heater would be taking over 10 kW and over 40 amps. If it's properly wired a fuse would soon blow or a circuit breaker trip. If the fuse has been replaced with the proverbial 6 inch nail then one of two things will happen next: either the fault will clear itself as the remaining segment of element burns out, or the fault will turn into a short-circuit. In the first case the heater would then either be completely dead or would work at reduced power. In the second case the fuse or MCB would then finally blow or trip, or else the wiring would catch fire. A sustained fault whereby the heater draws over 10 kW night after night really is inconceivable.

If your overnight consumption really is 65 units - an average of over 9 kW over 7 hours - then a lot of heat must be going /somewhere/. Are you sure you're reading the meter correctly?

[Derek Geldard]

You are going back a bit there !

Things have changed a lot in 18 (?) years. ISTR us using YEB electricians being a bit of a last resort.

High costs and high taxes make it impossible to make a living travelling out to do small jobs. A tradesman can bill out about 1,000 hours per year the average salary is over £25k, the tradesman has overheads, hence I have to pay about £220 a day or part thereof for a joiner.

I have a feeling they might have got the wrong end of the stick in a short telephone call.

If the input thermostat sticks closed it would draw current the whole time it was energised that might in some circumstances equate to 3x the energy consumption, but the heater would be getting very hot.

I think you have some more observations to make.

Derek

[Andy Wade]

No, for storage heaters the rated input power (3.4 kW in this case) is equal to one seventh of the rated heat charge (24 kWh). For a full charge from cold the thermostat will remain closed for the whole 7 hr period. The consumption in 7 hours will not exceed the rated 24 kWh, give or take small tolerances on the element resistance and supply voltage.

[Derek Geldard]

That's not it then !!!

Although to be fair by 3x the energy consumption I did mean 3 x the steady state consumption IE a heater with some residual heat and the thermostat set low (bit of an unlikely combination).

A shorted input thermostat was the fault condition I thought the manufacturers helpline guy could have been on about. I can't think what else, can you ?

Derek

[Andy Wade]

I don't think so.

As I said earlier you can imagine a partly shorted element causing an increase in input power, but any such fault is likely be quite transient for the reasons I gave. Also all storage heaters I've ever had anything to do with have a second overheat protection 'stat (with a non-self-resetting cut-out action) in series with the mains input. Anything causing a ~3 kW heater to draw 9-10 kW is going to cause that to trip if none of the other outcomes I mentioned apply.

[Calvin]

Just a thought: Everyone's replies have assumed that you are reading the meter correctly. Is it possible that you may have misunderstood how to read it? Perhaps you could tell us more about the meter, its display and how you are reading it? Remember that it will probably display tenths of a unit so it's quite possible you have only used 1/10th of what you think. Now 6.5 units is 6.5kWh which could well be consistent with a 3.25kW storage heater on a 2/3 setting. It will use 1 unit every 20 minutes - but only while the internal thermostat is calling for heat which will only be intermittent. So that would mean it was calling for heat for a

*total* of about 2 hours. Sounds about right.

Whatever is going on don't panic, there must be a fault in your logic rather than the meter or the heater. If you really were consuming that much power you'd know - the house would be roasty-toasty-plus- plus.

-- Calvin

[dennis]

Mine didn't. That is why I suggested he buys an energy monitor.