What is a hot water cylinder?
What is a hot water cylinder? There are a few different types of Hot Water Cylinders available and understanding what you should be looking for can sometimes be a little bit confusing.
Many homes rely on a hot water storage tank to supply hot water and unless you want cold showers, it’s essential to size your hot water tank correctly. Researching which type of cylinder you need for your home is essential to cater to your hot water requirements.
Installing a correctly sized cylinder will provide you with an efficient source of hot water without ever running out. The plumbing tanks in your home store hot water for you to shower, bathe, wash dishes, and do laundry.
Your property will depend on two things, how you intend to heat your water and how you want the hot water to be distributed out across your home. The type of cylinder you use is determined by the way water enters that cylinder: unvented and open vented.
If you require a hot water cylinder, we recommend you talk to a qualified Gas Safe heating engineer here at MPE Plumbing Heating Gas where Kevin would be pleased to discuss our competitive hot water cylinder installation and repair prices.
MPE Plumbing Heating Gas are professional plumbers with a 5/5 Google Reviews Rating
An unvented hot water cylinder
An unvented hot water cylinder was only made legal in the UK in 1986 but has since grown rapidly in popularity. Megaflo is a long-standing manufacturer and is an excellent example of unvented cylinders and the current market leader in the UK.
An unvented cylinder is fed directly using the cold mains water pressure, delivering hot water to showers and taps at mains pressure. In an unvented system, there is no cold-water tank, instead, the sealed hot water cylinder is fed directly by the cold water mains offering much better flow rates, meaning your shower and bath performance should be higher.
The other major benefit of unvented systems is that you don’t need to maintain a cold water tank in the loft, thereby freeing up space and removing potential freezing issues during cold winter periods. Other advantages of installing an unvented system include reduced noise in the system since there is no cold-water filling of a water storage tank.
Advantages of unvented hot water cylinders:
- No requirement for gravity meaning it can be located anywhere in your home
- No need for pumps due to direct mains pressure
- Installed easily due to existing pipework
- Work easily with existing pipework
A vented hot water cylinder?
A vented hot water cylinder is still the most common type of hot water system found in the UK. A vented hot water cylinder is a system that relies on gravity to ensure hot water is distributed throughout your home.
Hot water is heated either directly using an immersion heater within the cylinder or indirectly via a central heating boiler. Vented hot water tanks are less complicated than the pressurised unvented systems and for this reason, they are simpler to maintain and install.
This makes them a far cheaper option when compared to the unvented system. In a vented system, water is fed from a cold water tank usually kept in the loft. A cold feed and vent pipe are required in order to enable air to escape the system as well as acting as an expansion for water during the heating process.
This venting allows the water to expand in the tank and ensures that the excess water is condensed safely into the cold tank. The hot water pressure tends to be governed by the height of the water tank above the taps and showers.
This means that although on the ground floor of the home the pressure might be excellent, in rooms on upper floors the pressure will be lower. As a result, many showers in homes with vented hot water tanks use electric pumps to drive the hot water to the shower at increased pressure.
Contact Kevin at MPE Plumbing Heating Gas to discuss our competitive installation and hot water repair prices.
MPE Plumbing Heating Gas are professional plumbers with a 5/5 Google Reviews Rating
Advantages of vented hot water cylinders include:
- Cheaper than most alternate systems
- Relatively easy to install
- Easy to maintain
What size cylinder is required?
Choosing the right size of hot water cylinder is essential to cater to the hot water demands of your home. The right size hot water tank is crucial because it needs to be large enough to handle the demands of hot water usage in your home.
- Too big – you will store more water than you need and also waste energy in the heating process.
- Too small – will leave you lacking available hot water.
Some people may worry that having hot water storage means that you’ll run out of water whilst having to wait for it to fill up again, but if you select the right size for your property this shouldn’t happen.
The capacity of a cylinder will change depending on whether it’s being heated by an indirect heat source such as a boiler or directly for example by an electric immersion heater. The capacity is always measured in litres, which may not be entirely useful when thinking in terms of daily showers, baths or washing up.
Both vented and unvented hot water tanks are available in a wide range of sizes and can vary anywhere between 74 litres (16 gallons) to 450 litres (99 gallons).
The easiest way to work out what size and capacity you’ll need is by looking at the number of household occupants, bedrooms, bathrooms and showers you have.
When deciding what size tank, you’ll need there is a general rule you can follow… Allow around 35-45 litres for every household occupant.
It’s crucial to consider the combination of your cylinder’s capacity and re-heat times, especially during the periods of highest demand, and also future-proofing your cylinder.
On average, a standard domestic household with 4 occupants will use around 200 litres of water a day. However, it should be noted that hot water cylinder sizes will differ depending on the household and your own usage.
For a range of Hot Water Cylinders or Tanks, here are some useful links:
- Heatrae Sadia Megaflo
- Joule Hot Water Cylinder Manufacturer
- RM Cylinders Hot Water Specialists
- Gledhill Cylinder Manufacturers
- Telford Group – Hot Water Specialists
- Newark Copper Cylinders
For Cylinder Repairs, Installation & Servicing, we work in your area.
- Working in postcodes W3 to W13 & West / North London:
- Acton W3
- Ealing W5/W13
- Chiswick W4
- Shepherds Bush W12
- Hammersmith W6
- Fulham SW6
- North & West London Plumbers & Heating Engineers
If you require a hot water cylinder, we recommend you talk to a qualified Gas Safe heating engineer here at MPE Plumbing Heating Gas where Kevin would be pleased to discuss our competitive hot water cylinder installation and repair prices.
MPE Plumbing Heating Gas are professional plumbers with a 5/5 Google Reviews Rating
