Electric Heating Contactor Noise

[Simon Ryley <simon.ryley@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure someone on the list must have had a similar problem.

I've got a new build house with electric panel heating, not night
storage.  The system is wired as a separate ring main for the five panel
radiators, with each rad having its own thermostat, a conventional wall
stat in the lounge and a time clock in the fusebox upstairs.

It works in a similar way to normal gas and water central heating, when
the time clock is in an on period, and the room temp in the lounge is
below the stat setpoint the heating comes on.  Lounge temp rises above
stat setpoint, heating goes off.

The problem is, there is a ruddy great contactor in the fuse box to
switch the current to the radiators, and this makes a pretty loud thump
whenever it switches.  Its loud enough to sometimes wake us up in the
morning when it first turns on.  For some reason the heating also short
cycles, so the contactor is usually switching every 5 minutes or so, so
the thumping does get rather annoying.

I want to start doing a few clever things with the heating, but I can't
until I can get the contactor noise reduced.

Has anyone else has this problem and do they know of a way to quieten
down the contactor?  My suggestion to SWMBO of not using the heating
didn't go down too well...

Thanks,

Simon