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No hot water? Do you call an Electrician or Plumber?

 

It can be difficult to decide who to call when you have no hot water, especially if you have an electric hot water tank. This Quick checklist will point you the right direction.

Now before you call in all the trades. What do you do and who do you call first?

How do know which tradie to call when they overlap?

hot water cylinder - OME electrician in mount wellington otahuhu panmure ellerslie

Most of the problems with no hot water are caused by a blown Hot Water Cylinder element

This is is a good question and if you call both a plumber and an electrician it can increase costs unnecessarily.

Giving thought to these questions could save you dollars because you may only need one tradie to complete the repair.

Ask yourself these questions

  • Is it gas or electric? – If it’s gas, call a plumber
  • Is it leaking water from the cylinder? – Plumber
  • Is the Hot Water Cylinder Isolation switch on? Yes?- Electrician – Call OME on 0800 663 583
  • Has the Main Circuit Breaker tripped in the switch board or meter board on? Don’t Know where it is? Call OME on 0800 663 583
  • Can an OME Electrician change a hot water cylinder element? – YES
  • Can a Plumber change an element? Yes, but they can’t wire it in (unless they are Electrically endorsed).

Now that you have identified what trade and what’s wrong you’ll need professional help.

With the cause of the problem narrowed down, when on the phone, OME will ask you a couple more questions to identify what materials will be required in the vehicle to ensure we turn up to site with the correct components to repair the problem.

In doing so, we cut down on the time required to get you back up and running efficiently. This saves you money because there’s less time to invoice.

The general phone call we get starts off like:

Customer calls us and says “we have no hot water and the plumbers already been in and said electrician required”.

“What did the Plumber do?” He looked at the cylinder.

In our mind, we’re like: OK, let’s ask these question above.

But here’s the cruncher: it could save you a couple of hundred dollars if you ask those questions first since you might not need a plumber as well as an electrician.

hot water cylinder element cover - OME electrician in mount wellington otahuhu panmure ellerslie

Hot water cylinder elements need a qualified electrician to safely replace them.

Still No Hot water?

If the hot water cylinder is not leaking and intact, two things come to mind:

  1. blown element or
  2. faulty ripple relay with the power company not switching it on.

Most of the time it’s a blown element. This requires a competent (and qualified) Electrician to replace element.

Not all Electricians would change an element but at Orange Mini Electrical we will replace your Hot Water Cylinder element without the need for the plumber based on the following conditions: a) your cylinder is about 5-10 years old since installation, b) has no leaks, c) can be drained easily without damaging the property

Repaired

Generally it could take a couple of hours before the cylinder is back up to temperature and those hot showers can begin again.