hot water cylinder thermostat

[boomtheroom]

every few months the wires on my hot water thermostat stiffen and sometimes get a bluish corrosion on them and cause the thermostat to stop working until I replace the wire that has corroded. There is no moisture around the wires so why would this be happening?

 

[lame plumber]

hot cold hot cold = condensation and corrosion

 

[heliotrope]

From your description of hard and corroded wires I would suspect that you are talking about the
immersion heater flex at the top of the cylinder rather than the thin flex connected to the thermostat
near the bottom.

If this is the case then this problem is usually caused by the terminals not being tight enough or too
small a size of flex. Or even both.

It is very unlikely that you would get any moisture or condensation around an immersion.

 

[diamondgas]

Give them a feel when you know they're on. If they get hot then worry and get an expert in IMHO Past experience for me say's you have an overload problem causing the wires to overheat! That's a guess mind...!

 

[Reg Man]

Classic example of loose connections.

 

[iiplumbing]

Hi Boom

Deffo agree with Reg and Helio

What flex size is going to the heater, it should be capable of 3kw or 16 amp and be 2.5mm 3 core

It may be that the element is starting to fail, when it does it tends to draw more current which can lead to the wires getting too hot and thus "charring" or "blueing"

When you have cut back the wires make sure that you are not cutting off any of the little wires (multifilament) If you do then you are effectively reducing the cable size which will mean it cant carry the load and lead to overheating of the wires