Hot water stopped working - horstmann problem i think

[mordedor]

The hot water has stopped working properly in my flat. These are the recent circumstances...

- no hot water one morning last week.
- Landlord sent out his plumber/handyman bloke
- same fella had installed a brand new boiler about 3 months ago when a v.small leak was noticed with the previous one
- fella came to the conclusion that it was the electric timer settings panel that was faulty so replaced it with a new one.
- plumber set up the new timer settings so we'd have hot water at times we needed it. Set it to come on and then came back an hour later to check we had hot water, we did so success.
- but the timings set didn't produce hot water the next morning when we woke up.
- had a play around and tried different combinations of timings, none work.
- only way to get hot water is to press the 'boost' button which basically heats the water for an hour and gives about a showers worth of hot water in 50ish minutes.

Being useless at any kind of DIY I've come to the basic conclusions that...

Its obviously not the boiler as we can get hot water
Its the timer panel thing not working. The red light comes on at the right times we set it too but it just isn't heating the water.

Before I call the landlord again tomorrow is there anything simple I'm missing?

The timer thing...

The boiler/heater itself...

If you need any other info then please ask.

 

[mordedor]

Just a quick bump for anyone on their lunch hour who might have missed this...

 

[matt1e]

Just a quick bump for anyone on their lunch hour who might have missed this...

Either
The bottom element has failed
The bottom elements stat has failed
The bottom elements overheat stat has tripped
Or there is no power going to the above

It's not a boiler btw it is a direct unvented cylinder
Get your landlord on the case

Matt

 

[Aragorn84]

That timer looks like its supposed to be powering the immersion heaters off Economy 7, rather than firing up a boiler...

Often these have two elements (which it looks like your system has), a lower one, designed to heat the whole tank on cheap rate electricity (ie night time) and a "boost" element, designed to heat half the tank as a boost during the day...

The night element is the one controlled by the timer, and would be run off the cheap rate meter, the boost element runs off your normal meter (ie more expensive)

Sounds like maybe this handyman doesnt have a clue, and has perhaps set the timer outwith the times that the white rate meter is active?

 

[mordedor]

Thanks for the responses.

Yes, the timer/system is there to heat the water overnight. It just seems like the timer isn't clicking on the system. Which does seem to think it'll be a case of of that element failing.

As mentioned the cylinder is only a couple of months old? Would you expect an element to break so quickly?

If you were the landlords handyman how would you like a complete dunce to go about questioning you when you next came round? I can only imagine its a professionals worst case scenario when someone clueless starts telling you what your job is!

 

[hazetimesfive]

im not sure about this particular model, but I've heard that some e7 programmers really don't like being wired to a single supply,

there is a block of new builds where I am often (more often than one should) replacing programmers that are wired like this, i think they are the quartz model.