Nothing In Particular

[Paul Barker]

Just buy a big bag of citric acid on ebay, cheaper than that gauge.

This will mean you can turn back into a normal layman instead of reinventing the wheel, in a trade you dont understand.

[brig001]

Is this for me Paul?
I am a layman and don’t understand, but I’m learning. How will citric acid help? There’s always something else to know

Brian

[andrew Ivimey]

Citric acid disolves the calcium carbonate build up - just guessing!

[brig001]

Makes sense, thanks Andrew

[Paul Barker]

Is this for me Paul?
I am a layman and don’t understand, but I’m learning. How will citric acid help? There’s always something else to know

Brian

It breaks down limescale. The limescale coats youre immersion and or youre coil if dual fuel which is inefficient heat transfer.

[brig001]

Thanks Paul
Any thoughts on my idea?

[Paul Barker]

I dont understand what I see., if you could put a photo of youre dhw storage device that would help.

[Nick]

I believe he is trying to measure the average temperature of the water by measuring the change in the length of the container.

[brig001]

Yes, that’s it Nick
It should increase by 1mm from all cold to all hot

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Diet: No idea why its on its side, but you get the idea

[Nick]

You will (of course) need some averaging to avoid floor movement.

[Morgan Jones]

An intriguing experiment, and nice to see a Mercer dial gauge - I have a very similar one bought for setting the timing on my CZ125 in 1982. I wonder how much the warmth of the (imperfectly insulated) tank warms the surroundings, causing them to expand? Still, it's not a formal physics experiment and the results should be good enough.

[brig001]

Thanks both
Good points and if I can get it to nearest 5% I’ll be happy. It is always 100% first thing in the morning, so can zero any offsets there

[jack]

Are they related?

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[brig001]

The results are in, and it works!
One small proviso; when the tank heats up, the pressure increases slightly and that causes the tank to expand too. Once a tap is run for a few seconds, the pressure drops to normal and it is fine after that

When I say the pressure increases, it’s enough to see in the height of the tank, but not enough to notice at the taps. The first point of the graph is before a tap has been opened, the second is after a few seconds of tap running. All other points match hot water usage - showers etc

I have normalised the graph to after the tap was opened for a few seconds. Height is in mm referenced to that point

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Brian

[Morgan Jones]

So the x-axis is time and the y-axis is dial gauge measurement?