Immersion heater

[Evans Electric]

Anyone had this crop up before ??

Brother in law was fretting about his heater making a noise so I go round.

Turn the heater on , immediate noise just like a kettle heating up , says it didn't do it before.

Its a year old , bottom of cylinder c/w safety trip. 3KW on a 1.00mm flex ( changed it before I went) So , clip-on ammeter says 11A , element res. 18ohms . meggered clear to earth . RCD in board not tripping . B,ham is soft water area and Imm.Htrs tend to last a decent time.

So...... why is it making a kettle noise and why is it immediate? Any ideas?

 

[steptoe]

bad element from day 1 and its just deteriorated enough now to manifest itself..?????

 

[NozSpark]

I had this kind of thing a while ago..

It's because the water around the element is almost boiling, shouldn't do it from cold though!

I had a post on hear about it IIRC

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Mine was with a brand new element BTW

 

[Zeespark]

Air release somewhere EE?

AndyGuinness

 

[Evans Electric]

These things vent to the header on top I assume . It does sound like air TBH. Brother in law was worried he would have live pipes but RCD will protect him.

 

[m4tty]

Think the gassafe guy posted about this calling it kettling ? Can't remember his name tho :coat

 

[jameseye12]

My Immersion Heater does this whenever it is switched on. Since we had a new cylinder and element a few years back. Can offer no explanation though. I just thought it was the water heating up.

 

[Evans Electric]

Well , he says it didn't do it before but may not have noticed it TBH. Seems funny that its immediate , although water is quite warm already. This is a new cylinder and htr.

 

[jameseye12]

Funny, I never noticed it at first but I always do now. Never had any problems with it though so I don't see any harm. Unless of course it is the water boiling and then we should be afraid!

 

[NozSpark]

It is kettling Deke.

The water right next to the element is boiling, then it convects away and mixes with the rest of the water in the cylinder

 

[Apache]

Fit a jacket to the cylinder then he won't hear it - sorted

 

[Evans Electric]

Patch , thats a bit like a M8 who turned up the car radio to stop his big ends knocking . Cylinder is already lagged with the spray on stuff.

 

[jameseye12]

I've come to the conclusion that its only been noticed now, because in both mine and EE's case, the noise has only been detected after a new element was fitted, that this is so because the old element was probably scaled up (definatley in my case) and so the water wouldn't have been heating at the same temperature as the scale reduces its operational capacity

Correct me if i'm wrong - still learning !!

 

[chrishaworth]

Where I live, it's very soft water and all the immersion heaters sound like that. The temperature of the element is probably well over 100 degs until the thermostat switches it off. As Jamesey said, once the element furs up, the contact temperature with the water will probably drop below boiling point.

Cheers. Chris

 

[PC Electrics]

Kettling is caused by scale on the surface of the heater. It only takes a few thou thickness of scale for this to start up. The scale reduces the heat transfer from the heater to the water and raises the surface temperature of the heater. the noise is tiny amounts of water boiling and then the bubble collapsing again as soon as it leaves the surface.

Try one of these:

XS11S Low Noise Immersion Heaters

 

[Evans Electric]

Thanks for the replies guys , I'm thinking that the element has now aquired a layer of gunge then , as all tests seemed normal .

 

[nsbs]

I have had this problem a couple of times, its caused by scale building upon the element. If you change the element the problem will be solved for a while anyway.

Ian