My water heater

[Morris]

Hello,

I have owned an appartment in the South of France since 2002.

My question concerns my water heater. It's the large white elecrical cylindrical tank type, located in the bathroom.

The problem is, when I am not in France, I turn off the electricity at the mains. On arrival in France, I turn it on. Trouble is, the water heater takes a looong time to heat up (more than 12 hrs sometimes, seems to vary).

Now, I have just read somewhere that these heaters operate on cheap overnight electricity. So, is is possible that despite my turning on the mains at 10am, the heater just ignores this and waits for some trigger time ?

If so, what time is this likely to be, and can I override it when I need to ?

Thanks in advance.

[Ianhaycox]

The heaters do work on cheap overnight electricity, Heures Creuses (HC) and Heures Pleines (HP). Your meter should have an HC and HP dial. The times are printed on the bottom of the EDF bill, usually approx 23:30 - 07:30.

To override the heater there should be a switch somewhere, either on the heater or possibly the fuse box, with N/J (Nuit and Jour) marked on it. Press J.

[Morbihan2]

[quote]Hello, I have owned an appartment in the South of France since 2002. My question concerns my water heater. It's the large white elecrical cylindrical tank type, located in the bathroom. The probl...[/quote]

_{If so, what time is this likely to be, and can I override it when I need to ?}

_{Thanks in advance.}

Our Heures Creuses are 01:00 till 07:00 then 14:00 till 17:00 but you have a choice of a few hours either side - you can call EDF and give you client reference number and they should tell you.

As for overriding the automatic system I can offer advice according to our system. I think you need to look at your fuseboard and find the unit for the water heater and as opposed to trying to turn it to Jour or Nuit there should be three settings from which you can select the best for you.

'O' is off completely and 'Auto' will work with the heures creuses and then there is 'I' which turns the heater on regardless of the time. If you arrive outside the heures creuses hours then turn it to 'I' and it should heat up: