Dimplex Duoheat Not As Hot As It Should Be

[danward]

Hi guys,

I have a Dimplex Duheat 400 storage heater. Its served me well and used to be extremely hot, however recently its lost a large majority of its heat despite increasing the charge taken in overnight.

At first we thought an element (or two!) had gone, but upon inspecting with a meter this doesn't seem to be the case, and internally the heater is extremely hot (too hot to touch). Externally, even in the morning with the storage heater wacked up on full, you can touch the heater. My Dad has the exact same heater, on half the power setting, his is far too hot to touch.

At a bit of a loss as to what to try next, theres nothing visually wrong on the inside. Any ideas?

Forgot to mention, been through the manuals and can't see anything, ran the diagnostic and nothing seems to be wrong according to the machine itself.

 

[Andy™]

so whats the reading you get with your meter. it does sound like a faulty element or 2, but could be input controller

 

[danward]

Hi Andy,

My dad put the meter across it, not myself unfortunately, but all 3 were giving readings back so none seem completely broken. I can ask him for the readings if that helps? I think he was just looking to assertain if the elemtns were broken completely. 

They could ofcourse not be functioning quite as well as they should be, the internals were too hot to get the bricks out to take a proper look however as we hadn't turned it off overnight.

Is there anyway of testing the input controller?

 

[Andy™]

did he disconnect them or just test in place? if he tested in place, then he wasted his time. and yes, actual readings would be helpful

 

[NozSpark]

The problem is that the elements are in parallel so if you don't know what reading you should get then you won't know if there is one or more (but not all) element broken without isolating the individual elements before you test them.

 

[danward]

Disconnected all three to test. He seemed to think all three were okay and reading similar - however this is more his field then mine so i'll ask him. Was unsure if this was a common problem and something else likely to be affecting the level of heat.