Water Heater

W

Wombat

Guest
Finally biting the bullet and bought a water heater for the shower yesterday at Watsadu.
Long story short, as you may guess, I'm taking it back today AFTER installing it with the help of the village sparky.
I had a plan when I walked into the store yesterday, don't engage the staff, no eye contact with any staff until I need them. Saw some nice Rinnai ones, good brand in Australia but before I could grab it and get out a sales lady started talking to my wife. "You have village water with pump, this one no good, get this one, it's the best for the hard bore water." Se showed my wife a Mazuma brand for 3,500 baht, explained it was the best for our needs so I bought it.
Well after installing it we turned it on and hot water started coming out......at a trickle. Not enough water to get wet coming out of the shower head. We have very strong water pressure due to a very powerful pump so it not a problem with the pressure. The sparky said it was the internal piping that was too small and I tend to agree with him. So it's off to Watsadu today to try and get a changeover.
I somehow knew it was going to be a stressful and painful experience getting hot water. Should have left well enough alone, it was good exercise for the Mrs boiling all those pots of water and carting them into the bathroom.
 
Looks like you got a dose of Mazuma's revenge. Or was that Montezuma close enough anyway, still got some revenge.

In my trips to these stores I always respectfully tell the staff to piss off. Only once in Surin Global there was a nice young man that decided, since I knew more on the subject could I tell him, so he could help customers in the future. As he told me he was expected to wing it / bullshit customers.
 
Did you earth it, Wombat? Usually in Thailand these heaters are not earthed, and from time to time there emerges a story of someone getting killed by them. Usually a farang, strangely.
 
I've had 4 electric showers here in Thailand and they have all been fitted with ELBs so it's easy enough to check. Water and electrickery are dangerous cell mates.
 
isanbirder said:
Did you earth it, Wombat? Usually in Thailand these heaters are not earthed, and from time to time there emerges a story of someone getting killed by them. Usually a farang, strangely.
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Not that strange IB, they just don't report most of the Thai electrocutions.
I was going to mention the earth wire but I figured I was just being a Nanny and hoped an electrician would install it correctly.
I installed a unit for the outlaws about a year or so ago, a brother inlaw that calls himself an electrician. ( No trade school qualification ). Had an argument with me as the colour of the earth wire I was using???
I had bought green strangely enough and he said it was not a pretty colour. I jest you not. So we went to the local electrical supply shop, that knows me quite well.
With the brother inlaw standing there, I stated to them " I would like to change the wire as the brother inlaw did not like the colour". They said in unison "You are f**king joking aren't you"
When I stated "No" they just shook their heads and handed me a white cable. I won my argument but the pig headed guy just installed the white wire anyway.
 
My cables are the old British colours, red, black and green. Why they changed them in UK I don't know.
 
Yorky said:
My cables are the old British colours, red, black and green. Why they changed them in UK I don't know.
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I could never understand that either. RED for danger, as plain as the nose on your face. Now the live is Brown??? WTF?? Probably another bloody fool idea from Brussels.
 
mahdam said:
I could never understand that either. RED for danger, as plain as the nose on your face. Now the live is Brown??? WTF?? Probably another bloody fool idea from Brussels.
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Well that's exactly where it came from, some fool thought red positive DC would get confused with red active AC. Well it could be worse. In the states they use white and black. Guess which one black is "Active". Where the rest of the world uses black or blue as neutral and red or Brown for active.
 
So the short answer for those of us who are not sparkies is to just stay away and leave the job to a more-expendable Thai?
 
Wombat said:
Finally biting the bullet and bought a water heater for the shower yesterday at Watsadu.
Long story short, as you may guess, I'm taking it back today AFTER installing it with the help of the village sparky.
I had a plan when I walked into the store yesterday, don't engage the staff, no eye contact with any staff until I need them. Saw some nice Rinnai ones, good brand in Australia but before I could grab it and get out a sales lady started talking to my wife. "You have village water with pump, this one no good, get this one, it's the best for the hard bore water." Se showed my wife a Mazuma brand for 3,500 baht, explained it was the best for our needs so I bought it.
Well after installing it we turned it on and hot water started coming out......at a trickle. Not enough water to get wet coming out of the shower head. We have very strong water pressure due to a very powerful pump so it not a problem with the pressure. The sparky said it was the internal piping that was too small and I tend to agree with him. So it's off to Watsadu today to try and get a changeover.
I somehow knew it was going to be a stressful and painful experience getting hot water. Should have left well enough alone, it was good exercise for the Mrs boiling all those pots of water and carting them into the bathroom.
Click to expand...
We installed an Hitachi shower heater back in May 2009 when we built the house. It is still going fine , albeit running a little less efficiently from the build up of crud on the element from the ground water we put through it. With regard to your trickle of water. Its possible that swarf from the initial installation of the heater is lodged in the pre filter, also if you are on Village water sometimes this is not so clean and shit carried in it will also lodge in the pre filter and thus slow the flow of water through the heater.
The pre filter if you have one will be at the point where the water enters the heater. Unscrew it and wash the fine gauze filter under a tap. You will be surprised at how much better the water flow is if this is done regularly.
 
isanbirder said:
Did you earth it, Wombat? Usually in Thailand these heaters are not earthed, and from time to time there emerges a story of someone getting killed by them. Usually a farang, strangely.
Click to expand...

Yes I did IB, the sparky was right on to it........he is family after all, didn't want to be paid either.
 
I'm singing in the shower at last. The Mrs trudged off to Watsadu yesterday and returned with a same brand and model replacement. Of course the staff were reluctant to accept the complaint but the wife could smell blood and was adamant, despite claims that nobody in the shop had heard of this problem with a hot water thingy, that she wanted a new one. She asked to see the original sales lady but, and you probably will guess it, she was "no work today". Hooked up the new one and the flow of water is more than adequate.
I regularly check our bore water in a glass and it is crystal clear, I've never seen any muck in it.
Thanks for all the advice.
 
Wombat said:
I regularly check our bore water in a glass and it is crystal clear, I've never seen any muck in it.
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I think it will be lime rather than "crud" which is likely to be dissolved in the water. The throughput of our 12 year old unit over the years deteriorated and eventually it became obvious that the innards were "furred up" (the pump was off/on/off/on). The difference in flow when we replaced the unit was remarkable. We'd obviously got use to the gradual reduction in flow.
 
A friend bought a new washing machine a few years ago and when installed, hardly any water was entering on the fill cycle. The first thing to check was that the flexible supply hose wasn't blocked. When we disconnected it from the appliance we noted that the filter was blocked with a blue fibrous type material (the supply hose was blue). We cleaned the filter and reconnected the hose but virtually immediately filling stopped again. Removing the pipe yet again, the filter was blocked again. It was obviously coming from the inside wall of the hose so we turned on the water again with the discharge end leading to the drain. Left for about 5 minutes, we reconnected to the appliance and everything appeared satisfactory (and still is to this day as far as I am aware).
 
Does anyone know if you can buy instantaneous gas or electric hot water systems? Not these low flow ones in Global etc. I want something that can do probably 20 litres a minute. They have them in aussie and around 6-700 dollars. I am guessing it will have to be LPG. Thanks for any help.
 
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