hot water heater

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SpaceFlight
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hot water heater

Postby SpaceFlight » 2005-09-03, 2:23

Is it incorrect to call something in your garage that heats your water a ''hot water heater''? Does it make no sense to call it that, because if the water was already hot then you wouldn't need to heat it? Many people would say ''yes''. Is it senseless to talk about a ''hot water heater'' heating up water that's cold?

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Re: hot water heater

Postby Kirk » 2005-09-03, 2:49

SpaceFlight wrote:Is it incorrect to call something in your garage that heats your water a ''hot water heater''? Does it make no sense to call it that, because if the water was already hot then you wouldn't need to heat it? Many people would say ''yes''. Is it senseless to talk about a ''hot water heater'' heating up water that's cold?


I usually say "water heater" but I think I also say "hot water heater" sometimes. I don't see any problem with this.
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Postby Ariki » 2005-09-03, 5:51

I think you're referring to tortology (saying the same thing twice).

If you wanted to be really strict, then yes, hot water heater would be wrong if referring to cold water being made hot. However, under normal circumstances, most people aren't this picky.

Hot water heater sounds fine :)
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Postby geoff » 2005-09-03, 6:00

How about calling it a boiler?


To riki: I have never seen/heard the word "tortology", do you mean "tautology"?

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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-03, 6:20

geoff wrote:How about calling it a boiler?


I don't call it that but I could see it as plausible that someone might call it that somewhere.


geoff wrote:To riki: I have never seen/heard the word "tortology", do you mean "tautology"?


Yes, I believe riki meant "tautology." This is of course an interesting example of the famous "cot-caught" merger. As riki presumably says "tort" and "taut" the same (Antipodean English generally would have [tʰoːt] there, wouldn't it?), then the confusion is quite understandable. I, however have [tʰɑˈtʰɑlədʒi] for "tautology" and [tʰɔrt] for "tort."

Back to the actual term, that's not how we used "tautology" in my semantics class I took this year, but I think it may be used to refer to supposed redundancies in formal-writing style guides.
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Postby geoff » 2005-09-03, 6:38

svenska84 wrote:
geoff wrote:How about calling it a boiler?


I don't call it that but I could see it as plausible that someone might call it that somewhere.


It is very common in England. But regarding the original question I was cheating a bit, as "boiler" is basically the short form for "hot water boiler".

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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-03, 6:44

geoff wrote:
svenska84 wrote:
geoff wrote:How about calling it a boiler?


I don't call it that but I could see it as plausible that someone might call it that somewhere.


It is very common in England. But regarding the original question I was cheating a bit, as "boiler" is basically the short form for "hot water boiler".

geoff


Oh ok, thanks. I hadn't been aware "boiler" was a common term in England.
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Postby kibo » 2005-09-03, 9:39

We use the word bojler in Serbian for that. :)

But I would say water heater in English. :P

Funny how neither OALD nor CALD specify boiler as a Bitish English word. Though OALD gives a synonym that is especially used in American English: furnace

Also I found this:

immersion heater noun
(BrE) a device that provides hot water for a house by heating water in a TANK (= a large container)
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Postby Ariki » 2005-09-03, 10:43

Yes, I believe riki meant "tautology." This is of course an interesting example of the famous "cot-caught" merger. As riki presumably says "tort" and "taut" the same (Antipodean English generally would have [tʰoːt] there, wouldn't it?), then the confusion is quite understandable. I, however have [tʰɑˈtʰɑlədʒi] for "tautology" and [tʰɔrt] for "tort."


Thankgoodness no one would have picked it up if I had spoken it - I meant to write 'tautology' (which was pronounced to me as tortology).

Back to the actual term, that's not how we used "tautology" in my semantics class I took this year, but I think it may be used to refer to supposed redundancies in formal-writing style guides.


I first came across this term in high school, where my English teacher explained that it is 'repeating what you are saying'. Maybe she got it wrong perhaps? :?
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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-03, 18:52

Bugi wrote:We use the word bojler in Serbian for that. :)


Oh, that's interesting.

Bugi wrote:But I would say water heater in English. :P

Funny how neither OALD nor CALD specify boiler as a Bitish English word. Though OALD gives a synonym that is especially used in American English: furnace


I don't use "furnace" for a water heater but just as a term for the device which keeps the house warm. However, I tend to just call it a "heater" most times anyway.

Bugi wrote:Also I found this:

immersion heater noun
(BrE) a device that provides hot water for a house by heating water in a TANK (= a large container)


Most water heaters I'm familiar with here keep water heated in a large upright cylindrical tank. I would say most American homes have this design. They're often located in the garage or a utility closet. The one in my family's house is heated by natural gas, as is the heater (furnace).

A couple pictures to clarify what I'm talking about:

An American water heater in a garage here

An American natural-gas heater (furnace) also in a garage here
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Postby JackFrost » 2005-09-03, 21:36

It's not always found in garages since not everyone has a garage, like my apartment. Mine is in the bathroom hidden next to the shower. It uses electricity.
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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-03, 23:13

JackFrost wrote:It's not always found in garages since not everyone has a garage, like my apartment. Mine is in the bathroom hidden next to the shower. It uses electricity.


Yeah, I know--and even in houses with garages it can sometimes be found in other places. I was just speaking generally as to what's quite common here. Oh, yours uses electricity? I think natural gas ones tend to be more common here. What do your stoves use? Some use electricity here, and others use natural gas (like the one in my family's house). Also, some stoves are connected to the oven, while others are separate. The one in my family's house is a gas cooktop which looks like this:

Image

But the one in my apartment on-campus is electric and is connected to the oven like this one:

Image
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

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Postby ZombiekE » 2005-09-04, 0:19

Ah, so the whole "hot water heater" or "boiler" are just that? I thought they were something to heat water to drink tea :lol:

We call them "calentadores" (el calentador, masc. sing).

I used to have one in my kitchen with a cylindrical form. It worked with electricity. At home, we are afraid of gas, specially that one that comes in pumps (not the one that comes through pipes because there have been many explosions in Spain). After some years passed, if you opened your tap fast, some particles came and mixed with the water, so you had to wait for the water to become edible again, not mixed with iron or other dregs.

Then, my block (and the other three we shared heating with) changed the common boiler and now we share both hot water and heating. It's really comfortable. No worries to make sure you've turned on the heater before you went to bed to have hot water the day after. The only problem is that not everybody gets so much heat and they ask for more and personally, at home, it's too hot in winter, and the company who manages the system from their offices doesn't have much common sense or care and doesn't change the programmation when the weather changes! We removed the old boiler, so we have more space!

When I was in the UK, the boiler was cylindrical, but it lay horizontally (should I say horizontal or horizontally? answer please) and it was in the laundry room (or should I say the washing machine was in the boiler room? :D). It had a warning that read "WARNING, RISK OF FIRE". It was really big and made a lot of noise that frightened me when I was alone doing the laundry.
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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-04, 0:31

ZombiekE wrote:Ah, so the whole "hot water heater" or "boiler" are just that? I thought they were something to heat water to drink tea :lol:

We call them "calentadores" (el calentador, masc. sing).


Oh, that's interesting. My Argentine host mom called it the "calefón."

ZombiekE wrote:I used to have one in my kitchen with a cylindrical form. It worked with electricity. At home, we are afraid of gas, specially that one that comes in pumps (not the one that comes through pipes because there have been many explosions in Spain). After some years passed, if you opened your tap fast, some particles came and mixed with the water, so you had to wait for the water to become edible again, not mixed with iron or other dregs.

Then, my block (and the other three we shared heating with) changed the common boiler and now we share both hot water and heating. It's really comfortable. No worries to make sure you've turned on the heater before you went to bed to have hot water the day after.


In the US you don't turn water heaters on and off--most are always running, but if no one's using them they don't keep as much hot water heated, just enough to get going and then it heats more if you're using it. In Argentina I had to remember to go turn it off and on before and after my showers, which was a new experience for me.

ZombiekE wrote:When I was in the UK, the boiler was cylindrical, but it lay horizontally (should I say horizontal or horizontally? answer please)


Actually, either one sounds fine to me but a more formal usage would probably be "horizontally."
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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-09-04, 0:37

In Brazil, the only ones I'm acquainted with are similar to this:

Image

I call them aquecedores. They're very common in buildings, but I can't remember having ever seen one in a house, and it's the type you usually turn on right before using it and then turn off again once you don't need hot water anymore. When present in buildings, there's one for each flat (as opposed to having one for the whole building or something); in my own building there are none, though.
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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-04, 0:42

Psi-Lord wrote:In Brazil, the only ones I'm acquainted with are similar to this:

Image

I call them aquecedores. They're very common in buildings, but I can't remember having ever seen one in a house, and it's the type you usually turn on right before using it and then turn off again once you don't need hot water anymore. When present in buildings, there's one for each flat (as opposed to having one for the whole building or something); in my own building there are none, though.


That's very similar to the kind that was in my Argentine host mom's apartment. I'd never seen such a design before going to Argentina, so it was a novelty to me. The only ones I've ever seen in the US are the large cylindrical tanks and each house has an individual one (I believe that's the case even with most apartments). So if you don't have that kind in your building, what kind do you have?
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Postby ZombiekE » 2005-09-04, 0:48

Ah, I forgot about the word "caldera".

If it just heats water for showers, it's a "calentador". If it's used for heating as well, it's called "caldera" (fem. sing.)

When I was in Málaga, my friends had a caldera that did all the things, they had to turn it on, but I know there are others you can programme them so they start heating water automatically and warming home or stop it before you get home and can have that relaxing hot shower you've been wishing for.

Home boilers aren't cylindrical any more in most homes. They are inside a cupboard (is that the right word?) in the kitchen or in the terrace. In the case of boilders that are used mostly for water and not for heating, they are cylindrical tanks. I went to a house that had one of those just over the toilet. Mine was in the kitchen.

By the way, the gas transmitted through pipes (not pumps) for these purposes is called "gas ciudad" (city gas) in Spain.
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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-09-04, 0:48

svenska84 wrote:So if you don't have that kind in your building, what kind do you have?

None. The shower is electric, and if we want hot water somewhere else, we have to get electric taps, too.

http://www.corona.com.br/produtos_gorducha_4t.php

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Postby Kirk » 2005-09-04, 0:56

Psi-Lord wrote:
svenska84 wrote:So if you don't have that kind in your building, what kind do you have?

None. The shower is electric, and if we want hot water somewhere else, we have to get electric taps, too.

http://www.corona.com.br/produtos_gorducha_4t.php

Image


Oh, ok, interesting! So many ways to heat water :)
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I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

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Postby ZombiekE » 2005-09-04, 0:57

Water and electricity. It's a bit scary :D
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