Broken Immersion heater Element or electrical wiring problem?

[Rclarke]

Hi there, DIY'er here

I have an immersion heater that is not heating up water during the night on the cheap rate.
The booster switch "top element" still works fine, but I can't work out if the bottom element is broken or there is something wrong with the supply of electricity to the element from the switch.
I wanted to find out prior to draining the tank and replacing the element potentially wasting time if it was not a faulty immersion after all.

It has been not working for a week, I have used a multimeter to check the voltage going to the switch's on the wall. The booster is recieving 240v but the normal switch isn't receiving any. I waited until after midnight to check if the cheap rate on the tarrif would kick in and deliver power but still no reading and the light on the switch didn't come on. Could that be a fault with the immersion still? Or a fault with the supply? Should the switch be receiving power even when "switched" off?

Any other thoughts would be great

Cheers,
Rich

 

[SparkyChick]

The time your offpeak supply comes on may vary so you should have a chat with your supplier and check when your offpeak period starts.

By the sounds of it you have a switched offpeak, which will be switched by either a timeswitch in the metercupboard or the meter itself.

Have you recently had a smart meter installed? I've had an instance where for some reason the offpeak supply of a client didn't work after a smart meter was installed. The supplier sent an engineer who apparently did nothing but the supply magically started working on that evening.

Overall though, it sounds like there is no power being supplied to the switch (as evidenced by the lack of a light - although the neon's can fail). Do you have offpeak heating (storage heaters for example?), if so is it working as expected? If so, you may want to check the fusebox/consumer unit that handles the offpeak supply.

PIctures of your supply arrangements and consumer units/fuseboxes may help.

 

[littlespark]

One way to check if it’s working is watch your electric meter when it’s due to come on. The extra load required to heat the water will speed up your meter considerably. Will spin faster, or little light will blink faster.

edit. Actually daft idea unless you turn off all your storage heaters as well and only have the immersion coming on.

Advise against draining the system and swapping out the element unless you’re a plumber with the right gear.
I’m a spark, and I wouldn’t do it. Can damage the tank if done wrong, then you’ll be without water until a plumber can come out.

 

[Rclarke]

I have successfully replaced the element, was pretty easy in the end. Hot water is restored.
It was just a heavily corroded element, not the electrics as i feared.
What would a time switch look like?
There is a water meter next to the immersion but there are no controls on it that i can see and there is also "peak" and "off peak" switches in a communal cupboard downstairs.

I assumed the immersion turned on at particular times of the day/ night depending on my electricity tariff to make use of cheaper prices at off peak times to heat up the water.

But I have been informed by eon my meter which is economy 10 is actually just being used as a flat rate. Would the fact its an economy 10 meter mean that the meter is still telling the immersion when to turn on?

Or does it just turn itself on when it senses the water go below the temperature i set on the immersion thermostat?

 

[marconi]

To aid folk answer your question could you post some pictures of the IH installation and at the meter? A selection of shots is a good idea because the framing often misses important detail.