Immersion Switch

Seth Brundle

Decided to replace our old immersion switch today and typically it's not as simple as planned.

The cables on the old don't make immediate sense relative to the new switch.

I've included the old and new switches as attachments. The old switch has it's supply live and neutral wires removed to get access.

I'm guessing that the (invisible) red and black go in the Supply's N & L.
What goes in the Bath L?
What goes in the Sink L?
What goes in the Out N (black and blue (in bottom left)?)?

FYI, the red cable on the left connected to the earth is an earth wire disguised :rolleyes:

irishkopite 2011

It looks like your N out is brown.
Bath L and sink L will be the black and the blue. That's how it looks to me but I'm obviously not able to tell 100%.

Bruthal

The only difference is the new one does not require the link wire that the old one has.

So it would be the L and N supply to the supply terminals.

Immersion flex Black to bath, Blue to sink, Brown to the N out.

Its a long time since the immersions would have the brown as neutral and blue as sink or bath in the flex, so either its a very old immersion element, or it might need to be checked.

Perhaps you can take the cap off the immersion and take a photo of that.

brightspark

kbannon wrote: »

Decided to replace our old immersion switch today and typically it's not as simple as planned.

I'm curious, why are you changing the switch?

Bruthal

brightspark wrote: »

I'm curious, why are you changing the switch?

I was just wondering that myself.

Seth Brundle

Thanks for the responses.
The switch is being replaced simply because the existing one doesn't have a light on it.
Recently, although the timer, which is upstream from the bath/sink switch that I'm wanting to replace, was off, the immersion was boiling away. No idea why and it hasn't done it since.
The how water cylinder is great at heating (to the point of being scalding).

This is in a house that we've just recently moved into so no idea what or when the previous owner had work done on it.

Bruthal

When you say the immersion was boiling, did it actually boil or get scalding hot?

That can be an indication of a problem stat. But it can also happen if the neutral of the flex is connected into either bath or sink instead of the actual neutral.

I would definitely be looking under the immersion cap, or testing the flex wires with a multimeter on.ohms to confirm which core is neutral.

Seth Brundle

Cheers.
I'll get a look at that later.

Boiling I guess meant scalding hot.

Bruthal

kbannon wrote: »

Cheers.
I'll get a look at that later.

Boiling I guess meant scalding hot.

Yes it could just be the stat letting it get too hot but worth checking the wiring is correct. It's probably the 80s since immersions had anything other than blue in the flex as neutral,

The neutral in the flex is usually connected to the stat in the immersion and out of stat to the 2 element ends which are connected together with a solid link. Bath and sink go to the 2 single ends of elements then.

With a properly working timer, problems with stats or wrong connections can be masked as the timer doesn't let the immersion stay on long enough to show overheat problems.

Seth Brundle

3 pics of the setup under the immersion cap.

Does this appear to be wired up correctly?

Bruthal

Yes it looks like the old wiring setup alright with brown to stat.

Strange how it appears to be 2 blues coming out of the flex at the immersion end though. A bit of an illusion with the phone/camera/flash/light maybe.