Improved water heater control arrangement and assembly
AssigneeRheem Australia Pty Limited
InventorsLee KERNICH, Brendan BOURKE, Peter KERR, Quentin Arthur Carl ADAM, Grant STEPA
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electric water heater tank adapted for connection to a controller, the tank including one or more electrical heating elements temperature sensing means mounted on the exterior of the tank wall and adapted to obtain a measurement of the temperature of the water in the tank, the temperature sensing means and each heating element being connected to an externally accessible connection means. The tank can include one or more heating element control means each connected to a corresponding one of the heating elements. The element control means can be connected to the externally accessible connection means.
Claims21
1-89. (canceled)
A water heating system including:
- a water tank;
- and
- at least one electrical heating element unit;
- the electrical heating unit including one, two, three, or more, independently controllable blades;
- each blade being connected to an electrical power line via at least one corresponding power control arrangement;
- wherein each electrical heating unit is inserted into the tank via a corresponding aperture in the tank.
A method of controlling the delivery of electric power to an electrical water heater including one or more electrical heating blades, the method including the steps of:
- monitoring for the presence of one or more external power regulation signals;
- in the absence of an external power regulation signal, delivering mains power to the, or each, blade in accordance with a first routine;
- and
- in the presence of an external regulation signal,
- analyzing the external regulation signal;
- and
- depending on the analysis of the external regulation signal, either
- varying the power delivered to the blades, or
- cutting off the power to the blades;
- wherein the external regulation signal is optionally selected from:
- one or more power variation signals;
- and, a cut off signal.
An electric water heater including a water tank, at least one heating element blade, each blade being separately controllable via power control means, a controller adapted to control the power control means, the controller including an instruction store, the controller having a programming input via which instructions can be stored in the instruction store or memory, wherein instructions are optionally sent to the programming input via a communication link.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.