Trouble identifying my hot water cylinder

betterbuilt

Hi I'm having trouble identifying (hence fully / safely installing) a second-hand hot water cylinder.

If anyone out there recognises it and would be able to name it for us, or better still has an instruction manual, brilliant. I've trawled lots of sites for downloading instruction manuals, including emailing the contact us info on the Atlantic website itself (based in France it looks like) but to no avail.

The long and short of it is, a plumber installed this second-hand hot water cylinder for us which works really welll in conjunction with our oil boiler in the winter.

However, when our electrician wired it into our electrical system and switched on the electric immersion switch, he said he could not be certain it was wired correctly, since he did not know / could not find out what exact model it was and we could not find any instruction manual online relating to it.

When we switch it on using the electrical immersion switch, a flashing led light comes on inside which he wasn't sure ought to be flashing. Since we are no longer using the oil boiler as the spring has come, we need to use the electricity to get hot water, but are afraid to turn it on in case we damage the cylinder (or worse).

I'm posting this on the plumbing page, even though at this stage it's an electrician we need to come and check it out (the other guy is not available), because I thought it might be more likely that plumbing experts might recognise the cylinder (photos attached). Unfortunately the label stuck to the side of the cylinder has digits scratched off so it's impossible to know what the exact serial number is / might be.

Many thanks if you can help.

Wearb

I am amazed that an electrician doesn't understand this immersion heater operation. Have you tried another electrician?

Looks like a pressurised cylinder, so best to be careful and make sure the immersion is wired through a working thermostat and the proper safety devices are installed on the cylinder.

Hopefully someone who better understands these cylinder operation will come along with advice.

betterbuilt

Many thanks for your helpful response. I will indeed try a new electrician. I think the other guy wanted a manual as he had opened it up but couldn't work out which way the wiring was supposed to go without an official manual. We thought that perhaps it wasn't a normal cylinder but I'm thinking now that perhaps he was just used to working with older types of cylinder.

Thanks again for your prompt response.

dathi

https://www.atlantic-comfort.com/How-to-install-use/How-to-install-maintain-your-water-heater/User-installation-manuals

as yours is an old cylinder the solerio optimum or the zeneo are closest to your cylinder. it in several languages English is about half way down manual or you can email them, your cylinder is a dsvsm 200 886015/324821

Xertz

Generally the wiring for those is rather straight forward.

It’ll be a 230V single phase (monophasé) version.

The French approach was normally an extremely insulated tank with a single heater. They didn’t ever do all this bath / sink / boost stuff. They’re usually either on 24/7 or they’re controlled by a DIN rail size module on the distribution board (fuse box)

Typically you’ll just have a lug for L1, N and T (earth).

France, depending on the installation, can be very similar to here with heavy duty single phase, or can be more like Germany with 3 phase kicking in for anything with a big load.

Also, Atlantic, probably the largest supplier of electric heating equipment in France. Should be easy enough to get a wiring diagram.

The thermostat should be part of the system itself. They’re an finished appliance. So the electrician only really needs to connect the power, much as they would a cooker or any other fixed appliance. They shouldn’t be going near the internal wiring and stats.

Generally those devices are highly insulated, so you would have relatively little thermal loss from them, compared to a typical Irish immersion, which makes timing and boosting largely irrelevant.

Normally in France they’re either timed to heat on night rate electricity. Or they are just permanently on.

If you’ve night rate, they’re ideal as you can heat a big tank of water overnight and it will stay hot all day.

If it’s installed correctly, the thermal losses should be low enough that it’s not an issue.

In old Irish or British copper immersions, the heat loss is enormous. They throw out as much heat as a radiator. The majority of the heat will just end up lost to the air. Even the insulated ones are pretty crude, often relying on thin layer of spray foam or a loose fitting jacket.

A properly insulated water heater should leave the hot press fairly cold.

I think your electrician may be just very unfamiliar with these devices. It’s extremely straight forward