It's a few years ago, but we had an element fail on an even older airshields resuscitaire and one of my resourcefull chaps took it into a local wholesaler of "white goods" spares and discovered it was an element out of a cooker grill or something ! It only cost us a few quid (compared to several tens of quid from Vickers !) and worked fine. If your desperate, it's worth a try.
