Immersion suddenly started working after years

LionelNashe

I haven't had hot water at the sinks in yonks. The timer was still ticking, had power etc. There just wasn't any hot water. It didn't matter too much because I have an electric shower. The other day, however, I was looking at it and flicked the switch on and maybe messed with the boost dial. Next morning I'm washing a bowl and there's hot water.

Now one explanation is that it was working all along, but is there any other explanation? Any component that can work intermittently, or just stop & start working like in this case?

DublinDilbert

Possibly a loose connection. I wouldn't be happy using it till i know what changed. I would get it checked out and possibly a new timer/boost button fitted at the same time. I wouldn't be using an old flaky timer on an immersion.

Sleeper12

As Dilbert says it should be checked. Could be a loose wire, faulty switch or a faulty trip switch. All of these could be a fire hazard. If it was my house I'd have an electrician coming today just to be sure

ted1

Are you sure you didn’t switch from bath to sink? Some immersions have two elements a short one for sink and a large one for bath. One if them could be broken

LionelNashe

ted1 wrote: »

Are you sure you didn’t switch from bath to sink? Some immersions have two elements a short one for sink and a large one for bath. One if them could be broken

There are two elements, but I could have sworn that neither the main timer nor the boost timer was having any effect, before. The power indicator light for the boost timer isn't working, which I also don't remember noticing before.

Cushie Butterfield

The boost function activates the top (sink) element, so once you used the boost at a time when the bottom (bath) element, which has probably blown, wasn’t timed to heat, the top part of the tank would heat giving you a limited amount of hot water.

kramer1

High limit stat popped maybe , you could've pushed it back down by accident , a red button on top of the outer casing of the element.

LionelNashe

So it turned out the timer was totally shagged, wasn't passing power through to the immersion at all. It was just ticking uselessly, keeping perfect time, for the last 3 years. It's in the bin now, still ticking like an idiot, on the battery backup.

The thermostat on the main element was gone as well. So I must have switched on the boost for 2 hours the other day, to explain the hot water I had at the sinks. Not sure how I was so sure, before, that the boost function wasn't working. Either a loose connection as some said above, I guess, or else I didn't have the main timer switch on when I was trying the boost 3 years ago.

The timer & thermostat are replaced now. Thanks all.