Hi there I recently had an "incident" with my immersion heater when it overflowed from the top of the tank immediately after running the hot water. Plumber came out and changed the ballcock and isolator (which also sprung a leak) and recommended contacting a heating engineer as the water was too hot and likely the tank had boiled over, which was why the overflow could not cope. Subsequently I have also had the thermostat replaced which is now set at 50 degrees. A couple of things which make me concerned that the problem is still not fixed: - when the hot water tap is run for a few minutes, I can't hear any water refilling the tank, altho when I ran the bath the tank did refill - came home tonight and could hear the tank kettling (@6pm even tho on E7 the water heater should only be on between 2.30am and 7.30am) This makes me think that the water is still too hot and I'm not sure why. I don't live in a hard water area, so don't think this is related to scale. Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks
From your description can we assume that you live in a flat, that your hot water cylinder is a Fortic where the hot water cylinder and the cold water feed are an all in one and that the water is heated by electricity only. There are only two reasons why an overflow could occur. Firstly the ballcock is letting by so when no hot water is being drawn off the header tank simply fills up and overflows. The replacement should have cured that. Secondly the level that the ballcock is set at is too close to the overflow level so that when no hot water is being drawn off as the cylinder is heated the water expands into the header tank causing an overflow. The replacement should have cured that. The reason you can run a hot tap briefly and hear no refilling is that the header tank is already over full and drawing off a small amount of water won't cause the ballcock to open but when you run a bath and draw off a lot of water it does. Your new thermostat should be set at 60 degrees. If you can hear kettling then either the new thermostat is faulty or it has been incorrectly wired up. Do you have a "boost" switch on your water heating? If so that might account for why the water was heating during the day. If not there may be issues with your E7 meter (read the recent press). If the overflowing only occurs when you are using a mixer tap or shower you could suspect that cold mains is being back fed into the hot water. Your plumber is an idiot, get a proper one. Regards.
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