Elements That Have Failed
Tested for continuity and insulation resistance before replacement, so a working element is never swapped out to look busy.
Home/Geyser Repair
Geyser repair in Hermanus starts with a meter and a test lamp, not a price list. Elements, thermostats and valves each fail in a way that can be measured, and measuring takes less time than fitting the wrong one twice.
Tell us what the hot water is doing and we will tell you which of the four usual culprits it points at, and what proving it costs.
Five of these are repairs. Only one of them is a replacement, and it is the one people get quoted for most often.
Tested for continuity and insulation resistance before replacement, so a working element is never swapped out to look busy.
Water far too hot, or never hot enough. Measured at the outlet rather than guessed at from the dial.
Pressure control valves, expansion relief and vacuum breakers. The parts that quietly waste water when they go.
Weeping unions, corroded nipples and failed flexibles at the cylinder. Repairable, unlike a leaking shell.
Clearing the settled deposit off the bottom of the cylinder, which is where the lower element has to work.
A written report on what failed and why, in the form an assessor will accept, when the cylinder is a claim.
Open the drain cock on a geyser here and something usually comes out with the water: gritty, dark, sometimes almost slimy. Almost everybody calls it scale, because that is the word people know. On the Greater Hermanus supply it very often is not scale at all, and the distinction matters because the two behave differently and are prevented differently.
The town does not drink a single water. Preekstoel treatment works blends surface water from De Bos Dam with groundwater drawn from the fractured Peninsula Aquifer of the Table Mountain Group, through the Gateway, Volmoed and Camphill wellfields. The engineering record on that plant is explicit that the borehole water is rich in soluble iron and manganese, and that those metals cause problems ranging from stained fabric to gelatinous bacterial growth clogging the distribution network. Overstrand thought the problem serious enough to build a dedicated biological treatment plant to remove them.
Inside a hot water cylinder, the consequence is a settled sediment layer rather than the hard, crusted scale you would find on a very hard supply. It collects on the floor of the tank, which is precisely where the lower element sits. An element buried in sediment cannot shed its heat into the water properly, so it runs hotter than it was designed to, and it fails earlier than it should. That is the mechanism behind the classic complaint here: hot water that runs out far too quickly, because the bottom element gave up months ago and only the top of the cylinder is being heated.
It also explains the noise. A cylinder that knocks or rumbles when it heats is usually boiling small pockets of water trapped under a sediment layer. That is not a fault in the element and replacing the element will not stop it. Draining the cylinder down and flushing the deposit out will.
Which is why the drain cock is the first thing we open on a geyser call in this town, and why the test meter comes out before the parts box does. If a geyser here is eight years old and has never been drained, ask for it to be flushed before you agree to replace anything. It is the cheapest thing on the invoice and it is often the whole problem.
Written down because the temptation to skip the first one is always there.
A part is proved to have failed before it is quoted. A component that tests good goes back on.
On this supply the sediment is often the cause, so it gets dealt with before the parts conversation.
When the excess is more than the repair, we say so, even though the claim would be the bigger job for us.
If the trap door is too small, you hear about it before anything is cut, not afterwards.
What does geyser repair cost in Hermanus?
A thermostat or an element is a modest part and an hour or so of labour. A failed pressure control valve or vacuum breaker is similar. The call-out and the testing are quoted first, the part is quoted once it has been proved to be the fault, and the two figures are separate so you can see what you are buying.
Will you just tell me to replace the whole geyser?
Not unless the cylinder itself has failed, which means it is leaking from the body rather than from a fitting on it. Elements, thermostats, valves and connections are repairs. A cylinder that is weeping through the shell is not, and we will show you where it is coming from before saying so.
Why is there grit and sludge when I open the drain cock?
On the Greater Hermanus supply that is usually iron and manganese deposit rather than limescale. The borehole share of the town water is naturally rich in both metals, and anything that settles will settle at the bottom of a cylinder, which is exactly where the lower element sits.
My geyser keeps tripping the electricity. Is it the element?
It often is, but "often" is not a diagnosis. An element failing to earth will trip an earth leakage every time, yet so will a wet thermostat pocket or damaged wiring at the isolator. An element is tested for insulation resistance and continuity before it is condemned, because replacing one that was never faulty leaves you with the same trip and a smaller bank balance.
The water is hot but there is not much of it. What is that?
Usually a failed lower element, so only the top third of the cylinder is being heated and you get a short run of hot water before it turns. It can also be a thermostat set low, or a cold feed partly closed. All three are cheap to check and only one of them needs a part.
Is a dripping overflow pipe outside a fault?
A small discharge while the geyser is heating is the expansion relief doing its job. A continuous drip when nothing is heating is not, and it usually means the pressure control valve has failed or the incoming pressure is above what the valve is rated for. That is worth fixing, because it is running your water bill up quietly.
Can you repair it if the geyser is in the roof and there is no light up there?
Yes, that is normal here. What matters more than light is access: a trap door big enough to work through and a walkway or boarding. If the trap door is too small to get past, we will tell you before we start rather than making it bigger without asking.
Should I claim on insurance instead of repairing it?
For a burst cylinder, usually yes, and most policies want their own assessor or panel. For an element or a thermostat the repair is normally less than the excess, so claiming costs you more and puts a claim on your record for nothing. We will say which one this is before you phone your broker.
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Describe what the hot water is doing, including how long it lasts and whether anything trips. That is usually enough to narrow it to one or two parts before we arrive.