user 37014
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- Jun 12, 2023
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Long story.
I'm in the process of buying a solar diverter for my hot water, but before I do, I'm conducting a few hot water experiments.
In the 25 years we've been in this house, we've never relied on the emersion heater for hot water, it's only ever been used as an emergency top up service.
Also as we've been working during the day, we've never been able to use the emersion heater as our main source, as we are not here to switch it on and off.
However, now retired and at home a little more, I can now flick the switch manually when we are generating an excess of solar.
This week (being sunny) has been part of my trials, and I've noticed that we don't get a full bath of DHW when using emersion heater only.
We maybe only get half of what we would had we used gas.
Its fine for showers, but not enough for a full bath.
So:
I've considered that the top entry emersion heater may not be full length, and only giving us half a tank of hot water (makes sense).
However there are no part numbers on the element, which would indicate its length. (Pullin 240v 3kw)
The simple solution would be to take it out and have a look, but i'd prefer to avoid this for obvious reasons.
I took the end cap off to look at the thermostat and along the bottom of the stat it says 18".
Do I assume that the element is 18" in length
or does this mean that the desired temperature which is set at 70 degrees is at 18" depth.
I've upped this to 80 degrees to see what difference it makes
I'm in the process of buying a solar diverter for my hot water, but before I do, I'm conducting a few hot water experiments.
In the 25 years we've been in this house, we've never relied on the emersion heater for hot water, it's only ever been used as an emergency top up service.
Also as we've been working during the day, we've never been able to use the emersion heater as our main source, as we are not here to switch it on and off.
However, now retired and at home a little more, I can now flick the switch manually when we are generating an excess of solar.
This week (being sunny) has been part of my trials, and I've noticed that we don't get a full bath of DHW when using emersion heater only.
We maybe only get half of what we would had we used gas.
Its fine for showers, but not enough for a full bath.
So:
I've considered that the top entry emersion heater may not be full length, and only giving us half a tank of hot water (makes sense).
However there are no part numbers on the element, which would indicate its length. (Pullin 240v 3kw)
The simple solution would be to take it out and have a look, but i'd prefer to avoid this for obvious reasons.
I took the end cap off to look at the thermostat and along the bottom of the stat it says 18".
Do I assume that the element is 18" in length
or does this mean that the desired temperature which is set at 70 degrees is at 18" depth.
I've upped this to 80 degrees to see what difference it makes