ELCB- Immersion

RunHomerRun

Hi,

No Hot Water - Immersion

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Since Saturday am - we have no hot water. All sockets were off, checked the fuse board, ELCB tripped. Went through the socket MCBs one at a time.
The ELCB is tripping whenever the MCB for the Immersion MCB is on.
In the hot press, there are 3 unswitched fused spurs.

I've checked all 3, and all appear to be ok.
But no power to that area at all now.
If I reset the MCB for the Immersion, the ELCB trips, taking out all the sockets to the house.
So - I don't know whats causing this - but the immersion area appears to be the culprit.
We currently have NO hot water.

1) Is there something I can quickly check when home this evening?

Thanks in advance.

2011

The chances are your immersion has burn out. The only way to solve this is to replace the element.

If it is dual element perhaps only one of them is faulty. This may get you sorted in the short term.

RunHomerRun

Thanks for that.

I've contacted plumber - awaiting him to call out.

Yep - its a dual element.

System;
Solar
Immersion (electric)
Oil

House is only 18 months old - should an element be burning out already?

Pete67

RunHomerRun wrote:

We currently have NO hot water.

As said you will likely need a new element. But in the meantime does your central heating not heat the hot water too? An hour once a day should provide plenty and this time of year you probably need the boiler on for heat anyway.

Rev. BlueJeans

Your element is knackered. The solar controller and heating system should be on a seperate circuit to this...

At a pinch, try taking out the fuse to the immersion supply and resetting the MCB. This may not work, but at least it will break the phase going to the immersion elements. If you have already tried turning off the immersion before resetting the RCD, this will probably not work though.

2011

At a pinch, try taking out the fuse to the immersion supply and resetting the MCB. This may not work, but at least it will break the phase going to the immersion elements. If you have already tried turning off the immersion before resetting the RCD, this will probably not work though.

An 18 month old house will not have a fuse on the immersion. When immersions cause the RCD to operate it is normally due to a neutral to earth fault. By just "breaking the phase" the fault remains, this is one reason why the immersion switches are double pole i.e. they also break the neutral.

Rev. BlueJeans

His seem to be fed via a fused outlet though?

Unless they are protecting pressure pump and motorised valves of course, which shouldn't be on the immersion circuit anyway. The fact that he is saying he has no hot water is leading me to think they might be...

I agree that it's most likely a fault in the element insulation myself.

2011

Unless they are protecting pressure pump and motorised valves of course, which shouldn't be on the immersion circuit anyway.

The valves and the pump are permitted to be on the same circuit if they are in the hotpress according to current regulations

Rev. BlueJeans

As the immersion?

Genuine question, it's not my field so I'm not well up on the regs.

2011

Yes.

Rev. BlueJeans

Cheers, I wasn't aware of that, and it's not a practise I've followed in the past, or would do.

In this instance, a faulty element, which is pretty much a consumable, has clobbered his whole heating system.

As you say, the on/off switch should have isolated the neutral too, allowing him to run the heating system. Strange.

DublinDilbert

here's a link to a previous thread, showing an immersion element i took out:-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055618389

The copper cover over the element was completely split and the element sitting i the water....