Hello!
I'm in the interesting position of looking for a broken heater that's stuck in the "on" position, somewhere around 100-250 watts. I have an external thermostat and am trying to get the water temperature for another application a bit higher than what's standard on the heater thermostats. Alternatively, if someone can tell me how to set a heater so it's stuck in the on position, that would be great too!

Thanks, Peter

No luck so far. People's heaters must be more durable than I thought!

How hot are you wanting to make the water?

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I just pretend I know what I'm doing

Ideally it would maintain a pot of water around 120-130 degrees. I'd heat the water up elsewhere, and would only have a gallon or two, so hopefully a heater would be able to handle that. It is my attempt at sous vide cooking.

Also if there's a reliable way to break the thermostats on these things, that would be fine too. There are plenty of cheap-o heaters on ebay, and I would guess the cheaper they are, the more inclined they are to break . . . .

Over this weekend I tried the idea of using a regular heater with the top half out of the water, so that the thermostat would think it was only room temperature and keep the heater part on. Unfortunately, either the warmth rising off the water or the conductivity within the tube itself is too great, because the heater is shutting off even though my air temperature certainly isn't in the 80s. There goes that idea! Looks like I'll still have to look around for a busted one.