Why has my Dimplex storage heater stopped working?

[martyh]

I have a Dimplex XLS12N storage heater which seems to have stopped working and wondered if anyone can help. I used it about this time last year but not again till this week, when it seems to not want to charge/heat up overnight. I've checked the MCB hasn't tripped and is in the ON position, and the wires in the power socket - all seem ok. When I switch the INPUT dial clockwise beyond position 1 it clicks, and then again when positioned back to 1. I removed the heater outer panel:- and checked (reset) the cut out (it's a metal tag type), though I have never put anything on the heater which may have caused it to cut out. I heard a slight click but presume this doesn't click into a different position - just resets by contact? As I am unemployed with no funds at the moment, I wondered if there is something more I could do - or from my descriptions, what might be the likely cause. In addition, I have looked at the consumer (Hager) unit mcbs and can see one (marked storage heater) where the metal clip at bottom rear of the mcb, by the rail which is in an 'up' position, whereas all the rest are in a lower position where you can see a hole or cut out - presumably where one manipulates with a screwdriver. I was hoping to get this mcb out and see if the fuse wire has blown. Note all mcbs are in on position - none have tripped. The storage heater seems to be directly wired from the consumer unit to the supply socket (ie no fuse on the socket supply) just the on/off switch. It seems strange to have just stopped working. I am a competent DIYer with electrics but don't have any electrical testing equipment. Please email me if you can help at martyh(@)ntlworld.com Thanks. Photos can be found here -

 

[Andy™]

on the MCB, is the clip right at the back on the bottom? if so, this it what attaches it to the DIN rail. this wont stop anything working

when you press the thermal cutout did it click? if not, then its not tripped. without testing equipment, your not going to be able to get much further

 

[m4tty]

Has resetting the thermal cutout not solved the problem ?

Also the mcb will not have fusewire. Take a picture of the fuseboard and post on here it may help. Is this night storage heating that uses off peak electric. Ie economy 7 ?

 

[ProDave]

Do you have any form of test equipment? even a cheap multimeter capable of reading volts and ohms would enable you to make some measurements and work out what's wrong.

 

[steptoe]

marty,

where are you?

jeez, I hate this on the forum now where there is no location,

before I could moan at the OP for not giving his location,

now there is NO forum slot for it anyway.

ADMIN, get it sorted.!!!!!!!!!

 

[martyh]

Dear ProDave, steptoe, Andy & M4tty.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post, and sorry 4 the delay - I couldn't sign back in for a while.

In reply to your questions (I hope you don't mind me dealing with them collectively):-

I am in Ash (Near Aldershot)

Now I know what the mcb clip is all about thanks!

When the thermal cut out is pressed I hear a faint click but one has to listen hard and I am not sure if what I am hearing is what I should be hearing - if you follow?

Reseting the thermal cut out does not solve problem.

Reason for mentioning mcb may have fusewire (as opposed to cartridge) is that a few years back the main switches tripped, cause by an expired airwick plug-in and I seem to remember a friend at the time fitting some new fusewire to one of the mcb's - my memory seems to be backed up by the fact that he left me some spare fuse wire, which I found when removing the consumer unit cover the other day.

I'm afraid my current finances won't stretch to even buying a cheap multimeter at the moment.

The heater is set (as far as I am aware) to economy 7, whereby the heater heats up overnight. I understand that there is a split tarif internal sensor (please see previous photos - slightly below to right of reset tag) that controls this.

Re: my fuseboard - my camera battery just died but I will try to post a pic soon.

The only other thing not checked is the external sensor, which on this model is mounted on the back of the unit. This appears to be inaccesible without completely stipping the heater of its bricks etc.. in order to access the back panel.

I hope this helps.

Regards, Martyh

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Reason for mentioning mcb may have fusewire (as opposed to cartridge) is that a few years back the main switches tripped, cause by an expired airwick plug-in and I seem to remember a friend at the time fitting some new fusewire to one of the mcb's - my memory seems to be backed up by the fact that he left me some spare fuse wire, which I found when removing the consumer unit cover the other day.

MCB's do NOT have fuse wire OR cartridges..

they are purely a switch operated by an electrical overload.

Do you have any other storage heaters?

are they working ok?

This would confirm your time clock and supply are OK??

welcome by the way...

Guinness

 

[steptoe]

you may well have fuses, or 3036 typoe re-wirable fuses if you friend has previously left you some fuse wire,

MCBs are like little switches that simple need to be pushed back 'up' again to be reset.

a picture would be really good.!

I dont really think you need to be stripping your heater just now,

we have so many more basic things to check first,

one of many, is whether or not you actually have a tripped MCB or fuse.

some MCBs actually require you to switch them off before they will reset.

 

[ProDave]

The thermal trip will only click ONCE the first time you reset it. It will be a loud and definite click. If it hasn't clicked, it probably hasn't tripped.

Without any means to test anything I don't think we can help you. You can get a cheap multimeter for about

 

[Technician]

Those air wick plug-ins...never liked them. Sorry. ?:|

 

[martyh]

Thanks everyone for all the responses so far. I really appreciate it. Again, I will answer previous posts/advice collectively. I have also added some new photos.

Re time clock and supply. I do have another storage heater in my lounge which is both storage and convector. It's working fine but seems to be on a separate curcuit to my heater that's down. It's supplied by 2 separate sockets, one with fuse, one not. (see consumer unit pics for where mcb's are for these below.

View attachment 2794

View attachment 2795

Re: "some MCBs actually require you to switch them off before they will reset" - I have done this again now.

Re: thermal trip - as previously described when depressing the reset - there is not definate 'click' as such - and certainly not loud. Please see I have added the Dimplex wiring and component manual diagram below:-

View attachment 2796

I am now hoping that Santa will bring me a multimeter for Christmas - I've written the letter anyways!

Re: "split tarif internal sensor" - no such thing - this is described in the Dimplex manual picture above - but must bow to you professionals - Remember I am a novice!

Hot water is heated via hot water tank and gets nice and hot, morning and evening ok.

Re: white flex connecting to wall socket - I have checked both that the wires to and within the socket are secure and that the switch is indeed set to on (red mark shows at top). - Although it could of course be that the actual switch on the socket has expired - I will ask Santa for one of them to for purposes of elimination.

Thanks to everyone who has been so kind in helping me out here - just one last thing - maybe something or nothing - but last night I was up 'till 02.30 and definately heard a 'click' come from the heater around that time. This is the same sound as I described when you turn the heater INPUT control beyond position 1 (or back again)?

Hope the additional information helps - please don't forget that I've posted new photos of the consumer unit and Dimplex Diagram.

Re: The Airwick - it took me 3 days to realise this was the cause - and then only with the help of a friend! :slap

Regards,

Marty.

:Neil

 

[ProDave]

I can't see your atachments Instead I get:

"We have had a recent change in the URL addresses on this forum, and you may have been shown this message because of that.

Please check our forum via our search system: HERE.

We appologise for any inconvenience caused, while waiting from all search engines to update their records.

Admin."

do you want to check them?

I'm keen to read the manual and see what this sensor is all about. I've not seen one with that before.

Please don't take this as criticism, but when you describe the heater as fed from "two different sockets" when what you mean is two switches, it's no wonder people get confused.

The living room heater has both a storage heater, and a convector heater in one package. Are you sure the storage part is working, i.e is the heater nice and hot in the morning? or does it only get hot when you manually turn on the convector heater bit?

 

[martyh]

ProDave - I just uploaded the photos using the forum editor, so not sure why or where this problem comes from.

I have tried to post them again:- below.

View attachment 2797View attachment 2798View attachment 2799

Hope this has done the trick - if you like I can send the manual direct to your email?

Regards, Martyh.

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 13:06 ---------- Previous post was made at 12:45 ----------

Hello ProDave - Re: describing my lounge heater as fed from "two different sockets" - would this photo help? (below).

View attachment 2800

Re: the heater in the lounge working on both convector and storage - it's been absolutely fine - plenty of heat on the storage side and the convector side.Regards,

martyh

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 13:32 ---------- Previous post was made at 13:06 ----------

I have also taken a photo of another page in the manual that relates to the Economy 7 and White meter probe positions below and a better picture of the original diagram :-

View attachment 2801

View attachment 2802

martyh

 

[m4tty]

The links are still not working mate. I'd set up a photobucket account as takes 2 minutes and upload photos to there and link to it in your post. That's what I do

 

[martyh]

[No message]

 

[ProDave]

Got the pictures now.

Your consumer units have MCB's. No fuses or fuse wire anywhere. You actually only have one consumer unit that's split into two. The right hand part that appears to feed two storage heaters is only energised at night by the time clock next to your electricity meter. All MCB's are turned on and look okay, so I think one of them being faulty is unlikely.

The two switches feeding the heater are quite normal. I suspect the one with the fuse feeding the convector part might be a spur from the ring final circuit. Likewise the single switch feeding the non working heater looks normal. That one doesn't have a fuse.

You have the version of heater that uses a couple of extra sensors that tries to be clever and automatically sets the heat input according to the weather. But it's still the very same principle, two heating elements and a thermostat, it's just that the thermostat is a little more complex (and more expensive to replace if that turns out to be the fault)

I still think further diagnosis is stuck until you get that multimeter. Only 3 days until Christmas.

Assuming you can beg or borrow a multimeter here's what I would do.

Turn off the right hand big grey switch and the right hand two MCB's on your consumer unit. Then turn off the switch on the wall feeding the non working heater.

Next with the meter set to ohms, connect it's two probes to the ceramic terminal block at the bottom of the heater, just visible to the left of picture 30 from the manual. You should get an ohm reading of about 30 ohms if I recall correctly for two elements in parallel. If the reading is very much higher than that, then the heating elements have failed.

If it passes that test and you get a reasonable ohm reading, then move the probes to the L and N mains input terminal block. you should get the same ohms reading there as you got from directly connecting the probes to the element. If not you have a problem with one of the thermostats.

Let us know when you get a meter and can do those tests.

Remember to switch off at the consumer unit AND at the wall to ensure the heater will not be live when making any measurements.

I also want to say, be VERY CAREFUL taking the cover off that consumer unit. Those copper busbars along the bottom are LIVE. Touch them and you'll at best get a nasty shock or worse it could kill you. There should be a plastic cover over them, but in any event, you really should turn ALL the switches off, especially the two grey main switches before removing the cover from the consumer unit.

 

[martyh]

 

[martyh]

 

[martyh]

Ok ProDave - Thanks for the additional information. As you say, only 3 days to go.

I have directed Santa to this website for my multimeter - Domestic Multimeter : Multimeters : Maplin Electronics which I hope will be sufficient for diagnosis.

martyh

ohms

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was made at 15:50 ----------

I have now put back in place the plastic live bus bar protection cover, and the consumer unit cover ok.

 

[batty]

It may be the switch the tenby switches and sockets were never the most realiable but you will need a tester to test its function.