An instant heater warms water as it passes through, so there's no cylinder to find wall space for and no tankful going cold while the power is off. Open the tap, count to three, hot water. That suits Nigerian buildings, which is why it has become standard in new self-contained flats and one of the commonest upgrades in older ones. It moves all year rather than only in the weeks when the mornings turn cold.
Description
The question we get on this product more than any other: which wattage should I buy? Nobody can tell you that from a photograph. An instant heater does exactly one job, lifting the temperature of water while it moves past the element, and how far it lifts it depends entirely on how fast the water is moving and how cold it started. A unit that's lovely over a hand basin will disappoint badly on a shower head. There's no clever way round that. It's arithmetic, and marketing can't argue with arithmetic.
A buyer in Ojo learned it the expensive way. He ordered on price, took the smaller unit, then spent two months fielding complaints that the water was only warm. Nothing was faulty. The heater was doing precisely what a heater that size does when somebody opens a shower valve all the way. He reordered the larger model and sold the small ones to people fitting them over basins, where they performed perfectly well. Two months and a lot of goodwill, over a specification he could have settled in one message.
The unit shown is wall-mounted, with a digital temperature readout and a remote. The display earns its place by making something invisible visible, and a customer who can see the temperature on a screen trusts the appliance. The remote is a convenience, and it sells better than you'd think in bathrooms where the heater sits above head height and nobody wants to reach across a running shower to change anything.
Now the electrical half, where the real problems live. These are high-current appliances. A 3000W unit, never mind anything larger, draws serious current continuously and needs cable, a correctly rated breaker and above all an earth that can genuinely carry it. Plenty of Nigerian buildings were wired for a bulb, a fan and a socket outlet, and in those houses the wiring becomes the constraint long before the heater does. Anyone selling this product honestly raises that before the sale instead of after the phone call. Say it to your customers. They'll respect you for it, and you'll sleep better.
Two local details worth knowing. Water pressure first. A house fed from a borehole and an overhead tank at low head gives you slow flow, and slow flow through an instant heater arrives hotter than the customer expects, occasionally uncomfortably so. An adjustable set point handles it, which is why we steer people toward builds that have one. Running cost second. On Band A tariff a heater left running carelessly shows up on the bill fast, and customers do notice. A unit that heats on demand and sits at zero the rest of the day is one you can defend when somebody comes back to your shop complaining about their meter.
Specification
Every line below gets confirmed against the specific supplier and against an approved sample before a price goes out. Element quality and the safety cut-outs get the hardest look on this product, since a failure here does considerably more than annoy somebody.
| Type | Tankless instant heater. Heats water in flow; no storage cylinder and no standby heat loss. |
|---|---|
| Wattage | Commonly 3000W and upward. Match it to flow rate and use; a basin unit will not run a shower. |
| Voltage | 220-240V, 50Hz, correct for Nigeria. Confirm rather than assume on dual-voltage builds. |
| Display | Digital temperature readout. Adjustable set point on the better builds, which is worth having. |
| Control | Panel controls with remote on this build. Useful where the unit mounts above head height. |
| Heating element | Element material and construction is the main quality difference and the usual point of failure. |
| Safety cut-outs | Dry-burn protection, over-temperature cut-out and leakage protection. We test that these actually trip. |
| Earth leakage | An RCD or ELCB plug is essential on this product, not optional. Confirm one is fitted and working. |
| Fitting | Wall-mounted with standard plumbing connections. Fits over a basin or in a shower position. |
| Housing | Moulded body with an IP rating for bathroom use. The seal quality is worth judging on a sample. |
| Certification | CE and RoHS on the builds we quote. SONCAP is handled separately; see the notice below. |
We do not publish prices, because the landed figure depends on the specification, the Customs valuation and the exchange rate on the day you pay.
Minimum order
Fifty units is the minimum, counted over the entire shipment. There's no requirement to take fifty of each wattage. Split them between basin-sized and shower-sized units in whatever ratio you think your customers will buy, then change the ratio on your second order once the market has told you. Cost per unit eases past 100 through the usual freight and certification spread. On this product, though, what volume really buys you is control of the specification. At fifty to a hundred and above, a factory will build to your safety-device requirement instead of shipping whatever it makes by default, and on a heater that's the difference worth paying for.
Lead time. Standard wattages in factory packaging normally take 22 to 30 days to Lagos by sea, with the SONCAP inspection running alongside production rather than after it. These units are heavy and dense, so air freight prices badly and rarely makes sense unless you're plugging a gap in stock. Allow another 10 to 14 days for your own branding on the fascia or a printed carton. Then budget clearing at Tin Can honestly, and add whatever the traffic out is doing that week.
What decides the right one
No catalogue here. Never has been one.
Venocipal sources on instruction. You show us a heater, we find the factory behind it, verify what it does, and price it landed in Nigeria with duty and paperwork already in the figure.
The unit above is an example of a shape and nothing more. Wattage, control type, display, which safety devices are fitted, mounting and branding all get decided when we quote you. A landlord kitting out twelve serviced flats and a shop in Dugbe selling one unit at a time across a counter need different heaters behind the same photograph, and both of them can have one.
So describe the installation, or photograph the heater you already stock, and we'll take it from there.
As for fifty. On most products a minimum order is an argument about price. On this one it's an argument about safety. Below fifty you take whatever standard unit happens to be in the warehouse, and in this category that can mean one whose earth leakage device is essentially decorative. At fifty to a hundred you specify it, we test it, and we sign it off. That's the whole reason the number sits where it does. If your quantity falls under it we'll tell you today rather than let you import something we wouldn't stand behind.
Common questions
What's the minimum order?
Fifty units all together. Different wattages and different models count toward the same fifty.
What wattage do I need?
Depends on whether it's feeding a basin or a shower, and how cold your incoming water runs. Tell us the use and we'll size it for you. Undersizing is by far the most common complaint in this category and it's entirely avoidable.
Are they safe in a bathroom?
A well-built one with a working earth leakage device, yes, and they're fitted in bathrooms worldwide. A cheap one missing those devices is not, and you cannot tell the two apart on a shelf. Finding that difference is most of what we do on this product.
Does it need special wiring?
Adequate cable, a correctly rated breaker and a genuine earth. In a great many older Nigerian buildings that means somebody has to look at the circuit before the heater goes up, and your customers deserve to hear it from you at the point of sale rather than from an electrician afterwards.
My customers have low water pressure. Does that matter?
Yes. Slow flow comes out hotter, which sounds like good news until somebody scalds themselves. A model with an adjustable set point deals with it comfortably, so ask for one if you're selling into borehole-fed houses.
Instant or storage?
Instant where space is tight and hot water is wanted on demand. Storage where a large volume is needed at once, like a family bathroom running back to back in the morning. We source both, so describe the building and we'll advise.
Can you source other bathroom or plumbing electrics?
Storage heaters, shower units with the heater built into the head, water pumps, pressure tanks, heated towel rails. Send a photo or describe the installation.
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Tell us the bathroom, we'll do the wattage
Say what the heater has to feed. A hand basin in a shop, one shower in a self-contained, a whole flat with two points running at once. Tell us roughly how many units you want and we'll size it properly and price it landed. Or send a photo of a heater you're already selling and we'll track down that exact model, trip its safety cut-outs on the bench, and tell you honestly whether it's built well enough to carry your name. Nothing to pay for any of that, and no obligation once you have it.
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