How does this immersion system work?

Some_randomer

Hi all, attached is a pic of the water heating/immersion system in my apartment. Does anyone know how this works? I've seen other timer thingies and they have little switches that you push in for the hours that you want it to turn on. This system doesn't have any of those however. From what I can see it's either on or off and I can't figue out how to get it to come on after midnight.

- How do I set it so that it heats the water overnight?
- What's this system called, is it an immersion or does it have some other name?
- Is it generally cheaper / better to heat the water overnight than during the day?

Second topic: the shower I have currently is a pumped electric shower fed from the hot water in the tank, which means the hot water can run out after a while. Would I be better or is it cheaper to replace it with an instant electric shower, something like the standard T90?

TIA

Sleeper12

Hi. The link below should bring you to an instruction manual for "horstmann economy 7 quartz timer". Slightly different model to yours but same instructions (I think)


http://www.kellihers.com/media/pdfs/HO03_E7_Installation.pdf

Some_randomer

@Sleeper12 thanks for the link. I had a look at the manual and from what I can see the off peak time needs to be set internally in the unit, and that would have been done when it was installed.

The water used to be heated overnight but for some reason it stopped a long time ago. Now when I turn on the Water Heater Switch the water starts heating straight away which is not what I want - I need it to come on overnight.

No-one (as far as I know) opened the unit and changed the off-peak time mechanism so does anyone know why the water might have stopped heating overnight? Do I need to get an electrician to look at this or is it a diy job?

Some_randomer

I have the manual and I've snipped the relevant page - see attached image. My problem is I'm not really confident enough to go messing with this. However if someone was to say just open it up and change the settings (i.e. it's a diy job) then I'd probably give it a go.

Kimbot

Ok the dial on top is your timer, where you have summer time you need to have it to the current time on that line, I.e roughly 19.00.

The segments from 12-4 am and 6 - 10 am is the time that your water will come on at.
The switch has to be set to "timed" for this to work.

The other dial is basically a 2 hour boost timers so you lets say want to set it for an hour when you pop out during the day then turn it till the pointy bit is at 1 hour and the switch is set to timed.

Edit: my apt had this and the off peak time was the cheaper rates set by esb from midnight etc on the meter itself

Some_randomer

Ok that kind of makes sense except that when I set the switch to "timed" the thing starts heating straight away. I 've done this at a few different times during the day and it always comes on immediately. Is it banjaxed or are the settings wrong somehow?

Kimbot

Some_randomer wrote: »

Ok that kind of makes sense except that when I set the switch to "timed" the thing starts heating straight away. I 've done this at a few different times during the day and it always comes on immediately. Is it banjaxed or are the settings wrong somehow?

Make sure the smaller dial is turned to off and try it then

Some_randomer

jonny24ie wrote: »

Make sure the smaller dial is turned to off and try it then

Ok good call it's probably coming on straight away because the boost switch in on. Will try turning that off and setting the heater switch to "timed" and see if it heats overnight.

Kimbot

Yeah, it should be ok but i think that 8 odd hours of heating water overnight is madness so you can manipulate the timer to suit. Example of this is:

I wanted only 1 hour of the water heating as it was enough for me so every evening I would set the time to something completely different so that at 6am when I was waking up the clok now displayed 1am and had the water heated, I would then turn off the switch and reset it again that evening when I got home.

Some_randomer

jonny24ie wrote: »

Yeah, it should be ok but i think that 8 odd hours of heating water overnight is madness so you can manipulate the timer to suit.

You're right it is madness. You would think that once it heated all the water it would switch off. I read somewhere that this E7 Quartz model has a minmum of 4 hours and can't be set to any less than this. Do I need to open it up and change things inside to get it down to 4 hours instead of 8?

jonny24ie wrote: »

I wanted only 1 hour of the water heating as it was enough for me so every evening I would set the time to something completely different so that at 6am when I was waking up the clok now displayed 1am and had the water heated, I would then turn off the switch and reset it again that evening when I got home.

Good idea but from now I'll be having different short term tenants in the apartment so probably not going to work.

Kimbot

Some_randomer wrote: »

You're right it is madness. You would think that once it heated all the water it would switch off. I read somewhere that this E7 Quartz model has a minmum of 4 hours and can't be set to any less than this. Do I need to open it up and change things inside to get it down to 4 hours instead of 8?



Good idea but from now I'll be having different short term tenants in the apartment so probably not going to work.

Im not too sure on the setting of time down to 4 hours. One of my mates lived in the same apt complex as me and he just left it on all the time and never had a bill for more than 100 every 2 months so if they are set right on the install then it should be ok.

Some_randomer

jonny24ie wrote: »

if they are set right on the install then it should be ok.

I'm thinking this might be the problem..