Wasn't sure whether this was electrics or plumbing, but here's my tale...
I have a central heating / hot water system, whereby the boiler does it's stuff and heats up the water in the hot water tank. Not sure what that systems is called, but it's the old 'normal' one. Throughout last night, the boiler was continually locking out. You could restart it, and it would go for half an hour or so, and then go off again. No worries, I have 24 hour home emergency cover via Swinton. They've passed me on to Help-Link and they are ready to swing into action and come and see me urgently sometime between eight and five on Saturday.
So, in the meantime, I need hot water. My tank has an immersion heater, which goes via flex to a switch, and then there is a wire from the switch disappearing off below the floorboards. However, ever since I moved in 12 years ago, this feed to the switch has not been live. I suspect the live feed was nabbed for the shower pump, and they decided they could do without an immersion.
My plan is, to get me out of a pickle, to disconnect the flex from the switch, stick a plug on it, and plug it into an extension lead. It's not pretty, but will get me out of a hole for two days.
So, here's my questions:
1) Any obvious flaw in that plan ?
2) Assuming the immersion worked when it was disconnected, is there any inherent reason why it may have 'gone off' in the interim and no longer work ?
3) Beyond MCBs and RCDs tripping when I switch on, is there anything I should look out for when it is heating up ?
4) What's the worst that can happen ? Can I, for example, boil it all up and explode my tank or anything like that ? I might opt for periodically resetting the boiler instead if that were the case.
I have a central heating / hot water system, whereby the boiler does it's stuff and heats up the water in the hot water tank. Not sure what that systems is called, but it's the old 'normal' one. Throughout last night, the boiler was continually locking out. You could restart it, and it would go for half an hour or so, and then go off again. No worries, I have 24 hour home emergency cover via Swinton. They've passed me on to Help-Link and they are ready to swing into action and come and see me urgently sometime between eight and five on Saturday.
So, in the meantime, I need hot water. My tank has an immersion heater, which goes via flex to a switch, and then there is a wire from the switch disappearing off below the floorboards. However, ever since I moved in 12 years ago, this feed to the switch has not been live. I suspect the live feed was nabbed for the shower pump, and they decided they could do without an immersion.
My plan is, to get me out of a pickle, to disconnect the flex from the switch, stick a plug on it, and plug it into an extension lead. It's not pretty, but will get me out of a hole for two days.
So, here's my questions:
1) Any obvious flaw in that plan ?
2) Assuming the immersion worked when it was disconnected, is there any inherent reason why it may have 'gone off' in the interim and no longer work ?
3) Beyond MCBs and RCDs tripping when I switch on, is there anything I should look out for when it is heating up ?
4) What's the worst that can happen ? Can I, for example, boil it all up and explode my tank or anything like that ? I might opt for periodically resetting the boiler instead if that were the case.