instant gas water heaters

[Enrique]

Hi steamboats,
Did you get sorted......

Just had similar problem........no ignition.........on further investigation all the wires connecting the battery unit to the igniter have been cut by a rat/mouse...............

The temperature control on the Huesos boiler was chewed last night.......... .. some seriously hungry /destructive rodent out there........

Where is the cat .............fast asleep on the bed............

[Steamboats]

Hi Enrique, Happy New Year
Never fixed the water heater. I think it's a problem with the internal valve (unless a mouse has crawled up the pipe).
Rather than mess about, it'll be a new like for like unit from Bricomart next time we fly in. And much more I suspect.

[clarkos]

As has been mentioned, this cold weather can play havoc with butane gas instant water heaters, especially if they are outside. Butane stops evaporating (i.e. turning from liquid to gas) at well above freezing. And even if the outside air temperature is OK, as the gas is used it actually drops the temperature of the liquid in the bottle, exacerbating (my, what a nice long word I got in there!) the problem. You can see this effect by the condensation on the bottle. You can try switching to propane which has a lower "boiling point" (below freezing) so will give you gas at lower temperatures or try adding another gas bottle by adding a t piece/orange tube/regulator. It works here in Los Romanes. Steve

[alisonb]

As well as mice eating cables, watch out for birds' nests. Our internal boiler has a external horizontal gas outlet. When the boiler stopped working, we found a nest completely filling the horizontal part of the tube, and quite a lot of material had dropped onto the burner. This despite the fact that the fins on the outlet were only about 1cm apart. Now it's covered in mesh and no more problems