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Immersion Heater Installation
Fitted and replaced in hot water cylinders across Bristol. The backup that keeps hot water running when the boiler is down.
Call Julian 07831 718509Almost all of Julian's work comes from repeat customers and recommendations. Over forty years, that is the only measure that means anything.
Plumbing services › Immersion heater installation
An immersion heater is an electric element sitting inside a hot water cylinder. When the boiler is working it does nothing at all. When the boiler fails in January, it is the difference between a cold week and an inconvenient one.
Because it sits idle for years, a great many immersion heaters have quietly stopped working and nobody knows. The switch is flicked in an emergency and nothing happens. That is the worst possible moment to find out.
Julian fits and replaces immersion heaters across Bristol and roughly ten miles around Staple Hill. If your cylinder is also tired, it is usually worth doing both together rather than paying twice to drain the same cylinder.
Whether your house has one at all depends on how it heats water. Any property with a hot water cylinder almost certainly has an immersion heater fitted, usually in the airing cupboard on the landing. Properties on a combi boiler have no cylinder and therefore no immersion, which means no backup at all if the boiler stops. That is worth knowing before it happens rather than afterwards, and it is one of the quieter trade-offs of a combi that nobody mentions at the point of sale.
The most common call. Elements burn out, and because the immersion is rarely used the failure goes unnoticed for years. Sometimes it is the element, sometimes the thermostat, sometimes just the switch. All three get checked before anything is replaced.
Usually a thermostat that has drifted or failed rather than the element itself. Worth testing properly, because a thermostat is a far smaller job than a full element replacement.
If a boiler is limping through one more winter, a working immersion is cheap insurance. It will not heat the radiators, but it keeps hot water running while a replacement is arranged calmly rather than in a panic.
If the cylinder is being replaced, fitting a new immersion at the same time costs very little extra. Doing it later means draining the whole cylinder again for a job that would have taken minutes.
Element, thermostat and switch all get checked first. A fair proportion of immersion calls turn out to be the thermostat or a tripped circuit, which is a much smaller and cheaper fix than a new element.
The electrical supply is isolated and the cylinder drained down to below the element. This is the part that takes the time, and it is why doing it alongside other cylinder work makes sense.
Old elements scale up and seize in place. Getting one out of a cylinder that has been in a hard water area for twenty years without damaging the boss is the skilled part of an otherwise simple job.
Fitted with a new seal, and the thermostat set to a sensible temperature. Too low encourages bacteria, too high wastes energy and risks scalding. There is a correct answer and it gets set properly.
Cylinder refilled, vented, and the element run up to temperature to confirm it is heating and cutting out as it should. Then the area is left clean and the old element taken away.
Heating water by electricity costs considerably more than heating it by gas. An immersion is a backup and a convenience, not a cheaper alternative. Leaving one switched on permanently alongside a working boiler is a common and expensive mistake.
Switch it on for an hour each autumn and check the water gets hot. That single habit is the difference between knowing your backup works and finding out it does not on the coldest night of the year.
Scale coats the element, which then has to work harder and eventually fails. It is the main reason elements in this area do not last as long as the manufacturer suggests, and there is no way around it beyond replacing them when they go.
If your cylinder has no immersion heater at all, one can usually be added, provided the cylinder has a spare boss for it. Julian will confirm that at survey rather than promise it over the phone.
Immersion heaters turn up wherever there is a hot water cylinder, which in this part of Bristol means most of the older housing stock. The terraces and semis around Staple Hill, Downend, Kingswood and Fishponds almost all have one on the landing, and a good number of those elements have not been tested this decade.
Newer estate housing in Bradley Stoke and Emersons Green is more often on a combi, with no cylinder and therefore no immersion at all. If that is your house and the boiler fails, there is no backup, which is worth knowing before it happens.
There are no call-out charges and no travel costs added on top, anywhere inside the service area.
Hot water cylinder replacement · Hot water system repair · Water heater installation · Unvented hot water cylinders · Boiler repair
It is a straightforward piece of equipment. An electric element screws into a boss on the side or top of the hot water cylinder and sits directly in the stored water. When the switch is on, the element heats the water around it exactly as a kettle element does, and a thermostat cuts the power once the water reaches temperature.
Because the element sits in the water rather than in a separate circuit, it works whether or not the boiler is running. That independence is the whole point of it. A boiler failure, a gas supply problem, or a fault in the heating controls all leave the immersion unaffected.
Some cylinders have two, at different heights. The upper one heats only the top portion of the tank, which is quicker and cheaper when a small amount of hot water is all that is needed. The lower one heats the whole cylinder. Where both exist, knowing which switch does what is genuinely useful, and Julian will point it out.
An element failing often takes the circuit with it, but sometimes the trip is the only symptom and the element is fine. This is checked first because it costs nothing to check and occasionally solves the whole thing.
The water gets warm but never hot, or never cuts out at all. Thermostats fail far more often than elements do, and replacing one is a considerably smaller job than replacing the element it sits inside.
Nothing happens at all. The element has failed and needs replacing. On a cylinder in a hard water area this is the usual end for one, and scale is normally the reason it happened when it did.
Not a fault so much as a complication. An element that has been in a scaled cylinder for twenty years can be extremely reluctant to come out. Removing one without damaging the boss is the part of this job that takes experience.
Heating water by electricity costs considerably more than heating it by gas. That is simply how the two fuels are priced, and no immersion heater changes it. An immersion is a backup and a convenience, not a cheaper way of getting hot water.
The expensive mistake is leaving one switched on permanently alongside a working boiler. The boiler heats the cylinder, then the immersion tops it up whenever the temperature drifts, and the household pays electricity prices for water the boiler had already dealt with. Households are often surprised how long this has been going on once somebody points at the switch.
Used properly, it is switched on when the boiler is out of action and switched off again afterwards. Some households on an off-peak electricity tariff run it overnight deliberately, which is a different calculation and can make sense.
The one habit worth adopting: switch it on for an hour each autumn and check the water actually gets hot. That single test each year is the difference between knowing your backup works and discovering it does not on the coldest night of the winter.
Call Julian. He will test the element, thermostat and switch before replacing anything, because it is often the smaller fault.
Call 07831 718509