I'd use the brass – thousands of water heaters are crammed full of brass fittings.

Brass will be fine. In time you may get de-zinkification but thats a long way down the road.

Bri

Brass might become a health issue once you reach 175 years of age

Ya think?????? Now you've got me worried!

In 175 years someone might ask " The brass nozzle on my Ascot (powered on biogas) has finally corroded away. I have found a bit of 20th century material called plastic for only £25,000, is it safe to use?" Answer " Are you mad? That plasitc stuff is full of horrible chemicals that was in only used for about 50 years before the plastic mines ran dry".

I work in the plumbing trade and we use quite a lot of brass in water fittings. There will be no health risks in using brass in the application you describe. I would not recommend Nylon unless it is grade specifically formulated to work in domestic water systems.

Regards

Chris Gee

You say it is an instant hot water dispencer, if so be careful as it may be you are causing a problem by replacing a plastic componant with a metal one.

Basically if the water is heated in certain types of "instant" heaters, the water contained is live, and so including a metal part where a plastic part is required may just render yourself or your loved ones liable to shake hands with the national grid.

Simon

Live Water?? This sounds more like an urban myth than actuality. Distilled water is an insulator but the stuff that we get delivered in our homes by the various water companies is certainly NOT pure in any sense of the word. It contains various additives plus natural salts so that it behaves as an electrolyte i.e. It is conductive. In fact if you take time to measure it you will find that tap water exhibits a resistance of a few tens of K ohms with the probes about a couple of inches apart.

If you have a domestic water heater that delivers LIVE WATER then I suggest you put it in the skip before it kills you!!

Cheers

Martin

It is quite possible and safe and legal to have a "bare wire" or "wire in water" heating elements working at 240V. Dolphin electric showers made over 10 years ago used bare wire heating elements. So do Zip water heaters sold in the UK. Most German intantaneous electric water heaters also use this technolgy.

The products are safe because the design makes sure the electrical current, flowing from the bare wire heater to earth, is so low that it is safe. The electrical conductivity of the water coupled with the volume of water between two strategically placed earth contacts at the inlet and outlet water pipes is used to control the current.

The plastic outlet of the water heatwer will be downstream of the exit earth and so be safe to replace with brass.

As almost everyone has noted, if this system was ever used, it was 'old' or 'early' designs – ask yourself why it is not still in use?

Never saw one of these heaters in 35 years residence in Germany, and fitted several 'instantaneous' heaters myself in rented apartments in Germany – of course, this is no evidence that they do not exist.

Very strange statement from geechr – The products are safe because the design makes sure the electrical current, flowing from the bare wire heater to earth, is so low that it is safe. The whole point of any 'safe' system is that current is kept to a 'safe' level – the problem is, how do you ensure that? – a simple wire becomes lethal if it carries too much current (overheats, insulation melts, etc, etc) – so how do you guarantee that the current is kept low under all conditions – including potential faults? Surely no-one deliberately designs things so it is not safe (on second thoughts….) Seems like a good reason to me for not using this system.

As for 'strategically placed earth contacts….' – presumably both at the same potential, so no current flow?

Some interesting design possibilities though……

As they say. "Well I'll be bu****ed ". They must be isolating the mains voltage from the water somehow, possibly some fancy switched mode system, otherwise losing an earth would potentially, no pun intended, make the system live to mains voltage. Ah well I think I will wear rubber boots in the hotel showers in future however shocking it may appear , pun intended.

Cheers and thanks for the heads up on this.

Martin