Thursday, April 10, 2014

The Immersion Water Heater

The Immersion Water Heater

Water heaters. Modern homes could not function without them. All of us in the developed world rely on them for our safety and comfort. This is the kind of appliance that can be totally ignored until something goes wrong. 

In the US, we are blessed to have in our home the American water heater. It's the big tank thing in the basement which I don't know too much about, not even the brand. It just works and has hot water ready for when I shower. It keeps water hot...all the time...at a comfortable temperature...all the time. We have never turned off the water heater in our house since we moved into it in 2004, and never gave it a second thought. 

Enter the new system in Ireland...the immersion heater.
This water heater is located on the second level and its normally called, "the hot press".
There are shelves above it where you keep your linens and towels. 

Its difficult to photograph the working of the water heater, but I think I can explain the basic principles. Instead of a 75-plus gallon tank heater to a comfortable temperature at all times, we use a small tank with an electric element immersed in the water. It works like an electric kettle we use to boil hot water. The heating element blasts the water inside, boiling the water touching it almost immediately. When the hot water from the water heater is needed, we flip the switch to turn on the unit and the whole thing heats up in about 30 minutes. I noticed our button was always on sink and never got switched to bath. I asked someone when they would switch it to bath and they said, "never...bath just heats up more of the tank." Interesting!
"But what about that small capacity!", one might say. Honestly one tankful is just long enough for one shower. We get around that with the high temperatures. The water on the American water heater is set to safe and comfortable temperature that can be used full-strength. This heater gets the water blazing HOT! I mean HOT! It can not be used full strength from the tap without scalding. Even the taps and pipes get too hot to touch when this water is flowing through them. The result of this is, of course, a shower that uses a much lighter mix of hot and cold water to create a safe and comfortable water temperature. 

The trade-off is....to get this efficiency, we sacrifice the convenience of the good ole American HUGE TANK. Hot water requires advance planning. There are no spontaneous showers here. For a morning shower, we have to flip the switch just as we wake up. Then after tea and breakfast we are set to go. The tank will only last for two showers if we are lucky! Thats because we have a power shower here that uses the water much faster. Without a power shower water just trickles out of the shower head..there is no water pressure in Ireland. We do have an automatic timer to get around this problem, but we don't have it set up completely. If we ever need a small amount of hot water in a punch for dishes, we sometimes just use the small electric kettle. 

We also have a boiler that helps heat the water tank also and heats the radiators in the house. This is a little more efficient then the water heater. My mother had this installed when she moved into the house. Its located in the upper kitchen cabinet and there is a timer located next to it. When we decide its cold or someone needs a shower we just turn on this heater for an hour. During the winter we would also put it on for an hour before we went to bed to take the chill off the bedrooms. 
The boiler in the kitchen

I was recommended to watch this video on you tube by Des Bishop, he is an American comedian living in Ireland. After watching it, I think he captures the American perspective on the Irish immersion water heater perfectly. Its pretty funny!

Warning - there is some typical Irish language in this video! 


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