Night store heaters

ghosty01 · Nov 16, 2015

My friend has recently opened a shop which he is renting from the council. It was refurbed before he moved in and the council replaced all sockets and switches, to a poor standard it must be said. They have also cut off the flexes to the night store heaters in the shop so it's pretty cold in there. They appear to have replaced the switch for the heater with a single socket which of course doesn't work! He had a customer in today who said he works for the council and offered to re connect the heaters for £20. I went in this afternoon to find that this 'council' sparky has connected the 3.4kw heater to a plug and plugged it in using an extension lead! I'm only an apprentice but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be doing that. Am I right in thinking it should be on a 20A double pole switch instead?

Deleted member 9648 · Nov 16, 2015

This has got to be a wind up!

ghosty01 · Nov 16, 2015

I laughed when I saw it, then immediately unplugged it and asked why he paid someone to put a fire hazard in his new shop! The plug was warm after being switched off for over an hour!

Dave OCD · Nov 16, 2015

And running a storage heater 24/7 won't do the electricity bill any favours. [Ignoring the horrible bodge for a moment]

Octopus · Nov 16, 2015

ghosty01 said:
My friend has recently opened a shop which he is renting from the council. It was refurbed before he moved in and the council replaced all sockets and switches, to a poor standard it must be said. They have also cut off the flexes to the night store heaters in the shop so it's pretty cold in there. They appear to have replaced the switch for the heater with a single socket which of course doesn't work! He had a customer in today who said he works for the council and offered to re connect the heaters for £20. I went in this afternoon to find that this 'council' sparky has connected the 3.4kw heater to a plug and plugged it in using an extension lead! I'm only an apprentice but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be doing that. Am I right in thinking it should be on a 20A double pole switch instead?

Maybe it will once the Economy 7 timer kicks in!

ghosty01 · Nov 16, 2015

Yeah he's not sure who pays it yet. (His dad set it up he runs it) so he isn't too bothered, but I did point out that they're on economy 7 for a reason!

ghosty01 · Nov 16, 2015

Murdoch said:
Maybe it will once the Economy 7 timer kicks in!

Yeah I said it would, and he said it worked once when he stayed late to set up!

Andy78 · Nov 16, 2015

I have had similar before.
An old fella had a 3.4kW storage rad that had stopped working, so instead of calling an electrician he bought a new one to the tune of over £300 and installed it himself. Then he had noticed the 13A FCU was a bit crispy at the back so he replaced that too, but still not working. It was lucky he had forgotten to put the 20A fuse back in the ECO7 DB otherwise I might never have popped round.......

All in the name of saving money..... probably nothing wrong with the old rad.

Dave OCD · Nov 16, 2015

ghosty01 said:
Yeah he's not sure who pays it yet. (His dad set it up he runs it) so he isn't too bothered, but I did point out that they're on economy 7 for a reason!

So it doesn't matter if it costs his dad a fortune, he's not bothered, even though his dad has no doubt gone to considerable expense to set up the business ! Says a lot about people today...

ghosty01 · Nov 16, 2015

Dave OCD said:
So it doesn't matter if it costs his dad a fortune, he's not bothered, even though his dad has no doubt gone to considerable expense to set up the business ! Says a lot about people today...

The less said about that subject the better, I could talk for hours about people who are born with the silver spoon in their mouth! But that aside he's still my best mate and I want to help him out!