Old Asbestos Containing Storage Heaters.

Yes better safe than sorry. I must admit that most of the storage heaters that I have installed or opened up when fault finding have had glass fibre as internal insulation, sometimes as loose sheets other times encased in a small packet. They are very dusty things when opened so a face mask is a wise precaution, because storage heaters draw in dust due to convection currents.  I once took out some warm storage heater bricks and placed them on a customer's carpet whilst replacing a long storage heater spiral element. Because the bricks were warm they "ironed" rectangular patterns into the customers carpet. The customer was not pleased at all.


The heater that I looked at yesterday was an old Unidare model from the '70s I believe. The long spiral ni-chrome element was of very solid construction using heavy gauge wire, much beefier than others that I have see like Dimplex. There was a break at the neutral end of the element and a blob of metal where the wire had melted at the "cold tail". If the blob was of melted ni-chrome it would have had to reach a very high temperature to melt, about 1,400 deg. Celsius I believe.  I added a new cold tail using a porcelain connector. It is not so easy to obtain glass fibre sleeving these days. Screwfix does not stock it.


Z. 

Yes better safe than sorry. I must admit that most of the storage heaters that I have installed or opened up when fault finding have had glass fibre as internal insulation, sometimes as loose sheets other times encased in a small packet. They are very dusty things when opened so a face mask is a wise precaution, because storage heaters draw in dust due to convection currents.  I once took out some warm storage heater bricks and placed them on a customer's carpet whilst replacing a long storage heater spiral element. Because the bricks were warm they "ironed" rectangular patterns into the customers carpet. The customer was not pleased at all.


The heater that I looked at yesterday was an old Unidare model from the '70s I believe. The long spiral ni-chrome element was of very solid construction using heavy gauge wire, much beefier than others that I have see like Dimplex. There was a break at the neutral end of the element and a blob of metal where the wire had melted at the "cold tail". If the blob was of melted ni-chrome it would have had to reach a very high temperature to melt, about 1,400 deg. Celsius I believe.  I added a new cold tail using a porcelain connector. It is not so easy to obtain glass fibre sleeving these days. Screwfix does not stock it.


Z.