Homemade Boiler Lots of Pics – Asda / Tesco Kettle

[norn_irn]

good post, however would this not cost an absolute fortuneon electric??????????

[Bobba]

Hey Norn_in!

I worked it out as I was wondering this too, it's not as bad as I thought it would be....

A kettle consumes 2.5KW and during a boil you would run two for around 20 mins to help get it to the boil and then just one for the full 90mins boil.
This works out at 2.5KW x (20 + 20 + 90 minutes) = 5.4 KW hours
Scottish power charge me about 15p per KWh so that's a grand total of £0.81

[Stringy Bob]

Right, I had a go at fitting an Argos element into a spare bucket to make a dedicated HLT last night - and managed to bollocks it up. I had no problem fitting and sealing the element, but my 2 problems were:

1) The biggest one (I now need to go back to Argos to buy another kettle!) - when you remove the bi-metal strip, how did you do it. When I did it, it was secured with a metal pin which was fastened into the black casing. I proceeded to to pull this out with pliers. This however seemed to dislodge something inside the casing as there was something rattling inside. It also caused the casing to then come apart when I tried to fit it, resulting in a couple of springs and some copper contacts dropping on the floor. I now have no idea how to get these back together, so its back to Argos for another.

2) When you cut off the top section of the fitting, where the switch mechanism is located, what do I do with the wires (there are 2 thin black wire protruding from the main section of the casing, connected to the 2 red wires which lead to the switch) - do I just connect the 2 red wires and wrap them in electricians tape?


cheers

[dave.wilton]

Hi Bob,
I'm not really sure what you mean by the bi-metal strip, but I'm pretty sure I didn't remove it. As for the wires year I just left them on and covered them up.

Essentially all I did was remove any surplus plastic and the trip mechanism.

Yes I worked out the cost too and it really isn't that bad. Unless you go down the gas route you I don't think going to get better efficiency from a bought boiler.

[Stringy Bob]

The bit I was meaning is the circular metal disc with the white grease on, shown on this photo (not my photo, its from another thread)

[prolix]

that is the boil dry trip it does not need removing, as it should only trip above 100c anyway and will protect from boiling dry

[Invalid Stout]

Hopefully the stench of burning sugar would alert you to a problem long before the boil-dry protector took effect

[Guzluka]

Have fitted two and made two boilers so far and they have been grand, word of advice, buy a kettle from asda, smart price about 5 quid. Bought one from wilkos and the lead would not fit into the socket as the three prongs were too short.

[Jack Hackett]

What has happened to the images in post #1 of this thread ?

[dave.wilton]

What has happened to the images in post #1 of this thread ?

I'm not sure, i will see if I can find them again