My immersion element has gone again. 4 times in 4 years. Why?

[paterson00]

Our immersion tank element has gone yet again and its the 4th time in 4 years.

This time though we cant heat the water for a shower via the cntral heating system either.

Where should i start to look for the problem and what am i looking for?

 

[ajs heating]

what happens when hw selected on the programmer ?
have you got heating working ?
what boiler have you?

 

[paterson00]

I have a baxi bermuda back boiler and the central heating works fine ( except that we need to replace the thermostat).

The programmer is told to constantly heat the hot water as i was told that this was the cheapest way of heating the water.

 

[Alanka]

I know this will sound daft, but have you carefully checked that the element has actually gone open circuit (blown), using a resistance meter (or multimeter)?

I have been called out several times in the last year to replace 'blown' immersion heaters, only to find that they were actually OK, but that either the thermostat had failed, or that the element terminals had become corroded and were not allowing current to flow!!

On thoroughly cleaning the terminals and remaking the connections the heaters worked again.