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Other Vintage Household Electrical or Electromechanical Items For discussions about other vintage (over 25 years old) electrical and electromechanical household items. See the sticky thread for details. |
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11th Apr 2017, 6:05 pm | #1 |
Pentode
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Heathfield, East Sussex, UK,
Posts: 227
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Hot water heater.
Do you think this would pass health and safety?
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11th Apr 2017, 6:51 pm | #2 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,394
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Re: Hot water heater.
Eek! I wonder how long that lasted on the market? Point 5 in the blurb seems like a sort of decidedly incidental concern for earth continuity. It would be interesting to see one for real, if only as an illustration of why decades of safety regulations are a Good Thing. There may not be many left around though, possibly a substantial number of owners either got a bad belt, or an electrically savvy relative blanched with horror and binned it.
An interesting historical find, nonetheless. |
11th Apr 2017, 7:00 pm | #3 |
Pentode
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Heathfield, East Sussex, UK,
Posts: 227
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Re: Hot water heater.
Yes, I wasn't too sure of just how dodgy it was but did think it seemed the next best thing to an electric stove on the side of the bath....
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11th Apr 2017, 7:08 pm | #4 |
Banned
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Middlewich, Cheshire, UK. & Winter in the Philippines.
Posts: 3,897
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Re: Hot water heater.
There is a current Shower heater common in the far east which is oh too similar to this heater!
Its common to find a shower heater with single insulated wires from a socket ( if you are lucky ) in the shower room. Usually no earth, in the Philippines there is no earth anywhere unless you drive a spike in the ground. RCD is a rarity. Isolation switches never. Strangely many of the heaters are made in England, models you never see here though. |
11th Apr 2017, 7:28 pm | #5 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,996
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Re: Hot water heater.
Central America still has a horrifying range of ~~electric shower-heads~~ as searching "suicide shower" images on the likes of Google will show.
As a sensible "Gringo" I always avoided these - even if it meant washing outside with a bucket-full of water. I'm still alive to tell the tale. |
11th Apr 2017, 7:41 pm | #6 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Biggin Hill, London, UK.
Posts: 5,208
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Re: Hot water heater.
Around 1980 I remember seeing a small (travel?) steam iron in a department store in England. You filled it with water and added one 'measure' of common salt. Yes, inside the plastic housing were 2 electrodes connected to the mains. That was it.
If fed from an isolating transformer I would think such heaters were reasonably safe. And they can't overheat if they boil dry (if the water evaporates, the circuit is opened). But fed from the mains (one side earthed)? No thanks. |
11th Apr 2017, 7:51 pm | #7 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: East Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 3,986
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Re: Hot water heater.
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11th Apr 2017, 9:34 pm | #8 |
Nonode
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
Posts: 2,198
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Re: Hot water heater.
When visiting our daughter who was living in Mexico City, she complained of 'tingles' from the electric shower in her apartment. I found that the live and neutral were reversed, rendering the water live as it exited the shower head.
I corrected the wiring, but remained suspicious of the whole electrical installation in that building. Martin
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11th Apr 2017, 10:20 pm | #9 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Warnham, West Sussex. 10 miles south of DORKING.
Posts: 9,147
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Re: Hot water heater.
Unbelievable! There were huge current water heaters installed in blocks of 1930s 'Mansion Flats' to supply communal hot water. I have some pictures somewhere, they look like Bessemer converters! John.
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11th Apr 2017, 10:25 pm | #10 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,553
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Re: Hot water heater.
The "posh" version of that shower head has an earth wire trailing in the water as it flows to the spray part of the head.
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11th Apr 2017, 10:32 pm | #11 |
Pentode
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Halesworth, Suffolk, UK.
Posts: 188
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Re: Hot water heater.
Where can I get one? As regards the modern Eastern shower heads,there's a Scotsman on YouTube who did a strip down video on one of them. As Refugee commented, the live water is 'earthed' at a couple of points ( I wouldn't care to say how effectively) by a bare copper wire poking into the stream. What happens when it oxidises, however, is another matter..
Oliver |
11th Apr 2017, 10:37 pm | #12 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Staffordshire Moorlands, UK.
Posts: 5,270
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Re: Hot water heater.
the little boiler appears to earth its water through the chain that goes around the tap. But no thankyou!
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Kevin |
11th Apr 2017, 10:44 pm | #13 |
Heptode
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Edinburgh, UK.
Posts: 805
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Re: Hot water heater.
"use on power points only"
because running electrode heaters through a bayonet adapter in the bathroom might be even more dodgy than ... having a power point in the bathroom? |
11th Apr 2017, 10:58 pm | #14 | |
Hexode
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Newport, South Wales, UK.
Posts: 278
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Re: Hot water heater.
Quote:
https://youtu.be/cNjA0aee07k |
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11th Apr 2017, 11:11 pm | #15 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Leominster, Herefordshire, UK.
Posts: 16,535
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Re: Hot water heater.
Quote:
More likely the heater would blow a lighting circuit fuse. The whole shebang would be safe enough in a modern house- it would simply trip the RCD.
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11th Apr 2017, 11:13 pm | #16 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,861
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Re: Hot water heater.
I was less than charmed when I found out that the heating element in some UK electric showers wasn't insulated!
Three times the power of a normal immersion heater in a small box..... David
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11th Apr 2017, 11:20 pm | #17 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Bewdley, Worcestershire, UK.
Posts: 4,748
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Re: Hot water heater.
What a fascinating device, and probably perfectly safe if you kept your skin out of the water stream! I wonder if there's one in a museum somewhere? About as safe as the well-known Flueless Gas Bath.
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12th Apr 2017, 9:03 am | #18 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Co. Durham, UK.
Posts: 1,116
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Re: Hot water heater.
Is anyone interested in how this device works? I'm more inclined towards that aspect of early electrical technology, than in the fact that it is now obsolete.
My first girlfriend thought Laurel and Hardy films hilarious, because of the 'funny old cars'. |
12th Apr 2017, 9:07 am | #19 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Cornwall, UK.
Posts: 13,454
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Re: Hot water heater.
The advert claims no elements to go wrong.
Lawrence. |
12th Apr 2017, 10:21 am | #20 |
Nonode
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Coningsby, Lincolnshire, UK.
Posts: 2,819
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Re: Hot water heater.
It's probably just a coil of thick copper wire inside it connected across the mains!
Things haven't really changed much, the average electric shower is pretty much one of these in a box with a few safety features (that work when they want to!). I don't trust electric showers much now, I've had 3 blow up in spectacular fashion whilst I was using them, and only 1 actually made the circuit breaker trip! One unit had a heater element fail on a way that firstly made the water coming out of it smell really strongly of rotten egg shortly before a loud pop inside it which tripped the breaker. I did an autopsy on it to find the element had actually split open, and the live internal coil was exposed to the water! Our old house didn't have an RCD, so the shower continued to operate until it shorted out enough to trip the breaker. It would be good to find one of these water heaters still in existence! I could do with something like it for the sink in my workshop... Regards, Lloyd |