"geoff" wrote in message
...
In message , anon
writes
My central heating timer is one of the old mechanical types where a
disc slowly rotates with time, and the central heating is switched on
and off by plastic knobs attached to the disc.

The problem is that it's very old and the plastic knobs just get
pushed around the dial so the heating wither stays on, or stays off
depending on which knob actually managed to switch it last.

The timer is plugged into a wall socket. Would it be OK to buy a
timer plug from Argos, set the times on that, and plug the broken
timer into it? that way I could leave the old mechanical timer to
"always on" and use the digital plug-in timer to control the heating
by switching the power to the old timer on and off.

Are there any safety issues with this?

I am assuming that my boiler has a seperate power supply to the timer.
Is this always the case?

I presume you are talking about a Randall 102 or 103

Better to buy the electronic equivalent e.g. Randall 105E, no need to
rewire anything and it

Too true Maxie, also the ubiquitous Landis & Gyr mechanical version has a
direct replacement digital model.


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