On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:29:14 -0800, alexander.keys1 wrote:
Recently I've been doing some voluntary work at a local church, and
I've come across a strange arrangement with their gas heaters.
The appliances in question are large wall-mounted convectors with
integral thermostats. On the bottom of the heaters there is an
electrical connection, taken from specially installed
timeswitch-controlled circuits (so not just tapped off the socket
circuit). This feeds only a small heating element (actually a small
enclosed wirewound resistor of a few watts rating), attached to the
capillary sensor tube of the thermostat. There are no electrical
controls on the heaters themselves, in fact the resistor and an
associated terminal block seem to have been fitted on installation
rather than in manufacture.
So what's going on here?
Are these units made by Drugasar (Drugasol?) If so, that make had
the peculiar 'feature' of requiring power to be applied to keep the
heaters off. Which means they come on in a power cut and are generally not
liked. This might be the mechanism they work by, as I've only ever taken
them out.
Furthermore with infrequent use they get in churches and other public
buildings, the flue gases tend to condense on startup and rot the heatX.
--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
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