/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Hey sup /diy/ !
I live in a third world dump and needless to say , the techniques they user here are from the previous century or so.
Ok so here's the deal. The hot water system in my house is kind of primitive. Its a tank made of beaten copper and its heated by an immersion heater. The immersion heater itself is nothing but a coil of solenoid shaped Nichrome wire wrapped around a porcelain core. We just take two connections from the mains and stick it inside. No thermostat or grounding. So far it does the work , but I guess its extremely wasteful and inefficient when it comes to energy consumption. Also , it needs a high enough voltage to work properly , which isn't available here in the winter. Also , the coil wastes away over time due to corrosion and its an absolute pain in the ass to change the coil.

What kind of modifications should I make to the heater to make it either :

1. Efficient in terms of heating capacity
Or
2: Stop or slow down the corrosion of the coil


Energy consumption doesn't matter coz electricity here is almost free.

Also, could you guys point me to some resources where they show efficient builds of a heater.

Stuff I found on Google was.. Well.. Unsatisfactory

I've played a bit... very simple connections and fixing broken connections and the like... a little concerned with the cancer warnings.... inspire me about soldering /diy/.... what have you done?

are there any methods to do it without using high heat and/or creating fumes?