Fifteen hours ago a heavy rain & thunderstorm came through here. Roads were flooded, part of the leisure centre’s roof caved in forcing them to close the 24/7 gym access. And my gas hot water system stopped working when a circuit breaker was tripped.
This is an instantaneous natural gas unit with no pilot light. Instead it has a 230 volt mains-powered auto-igniter. With a power cord 8 inches too short to reach the external power outlet originally intended for the ducted gas heating the shifty previous owner installed. I stopped using it because it was too big & inefficient for a dwelling of this size, 950 sq ft (88 sq metres). The unit is one intended for a 200 sq metre building.
I had connected 1 metre power cord & connected the short lead to it, enclosing it in a weatherproof junction box but that over time had become brittle from UV radiation & leaked, allowing water in, hence the protective circuit breaker tripping.
On my M1 MacBook Air I have a hardware megastore’s iOS app installed, so I used it to determine the availability of a better power cord junction cover.
I found this one (looks like a weird submarine) which is UV stable & has an internal rubber gasket that has grommets for power cord entry. As soon as I had connected the new cable & powered it up I could hear the igniter working.
