What is an immersion heater spanner?
What is an immersion heater spanner? |
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What is a spanner? |
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A spanner is a tool used to provide grip and leverage when tightening or loosening a nut. | |||
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The use of a spanner enables a nut to be fastened much tighter than is possible by hand, as the length of the spanner handle provides increased torque on the component that is being tightened. The same is true of loosening the nut. | |||
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The reason for this is that the spanner handle acts as a lever. Effectively, levers magnify your strength – the longer they are, the stronger you are.
If you tried to lift a friend, for example, you might find they were quite heavy. If you sat them on the end of a see saw and pushed downwards, it would be much less effort. |
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What is torque? |
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Torque is a force that causes rotation. In this diagram, pushing on a handle (green arrow) attached to a pivot (blue arrow) in the direction marked with the red arrow, causes everything to turn in the direction marked with the grey arrow. | |||
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Spanner heads are either shaped like jaws (open head) or have a specific shape cut out of a metal ring (ring head). | |||
What is an immersion heater spanner? |
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An immersion heater spanner (sometimes referred to as an immersion heater wrench) is a large, ring headed spanner designed specifically to fit around the immersion heater element in a hot water cylinder. | |||
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Its purpose is to tighten or loosen the immersion heater element and it is used when a heater element needs to be removed from or installed in a cylinder. | |||
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An immersion heater element may need to be removed if it gets damaged. This can happen through corrosion, a build up of limescale or the element itself being faulty. | |||
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There two main types of immersion heater spanner – ring headed (flat spanners and cranked spanners) and box headed (box spanners, heavy duty box spanners and box ring spanners).
More information on all of these types of spanner can be found under {{widget type=”cms/widget_page_link” anchor_text=”What are the different types of immersion heater spanner?” title=”What are the different types of immersion heater spanner?” template=”cms/widget/link/link_inline.phtml” page_id=”727″}} |
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