5 Tips to Help You Choose the Right Cylinder

Installing a new hot water cylinder? If so, you have quite a few considerations to make. Your cylinder must be the right size, placed in the right location, able to provide your entire family with hot water, and use the right technology. In this post, we’ll walk you through five important tips to help ensure that you’re able to choose the best cylinder for your specific needs.

The first consideration you’ll need to make is whether you want a direct or indirect cylinder. This refers to how the water is heated – directly through a flame or electric heater or indirectly through something like a heat exchanger. There’s less flexibility here than you might think, too. For instance, if you live in a small flat, you’ll be required to use a direct cylinder.

However, for larger homes and those that use other sources of power than electricity, an indirect cylinder might be a better option. You can use solar thermal, wood burners, or boilers to warm the water in an indirect cylinder for use in bathing and washing up.

Once, vented cylinders were the only option. They were vented to the outside atmosphere and were installed in the loft/attic of the home. Gravity was used to move the hot water through the piping to the taps. While this worked, it resulted in less than ideal hot water pressure. Vented cylinders can also be quite noisy, and they’re restrictive because of the amount of space they require in your attic or loft.

Unvented cylinders, on the other hand, can be installed just about anywhere in your home. They supply mains pressure hot water to all the taps and there’s no need for gravity to augment the flow.

Thermal store cylinders deliver mains pressure hot water but offer indirect heating. The water in the cylinder is used to supply heat through a heat exchanger to water passing by in the lines. This means that a thermal store cylinder will never run out of hot water. They can also run on electricity, or be heated by other means, such as a boiler.

Where are you planning to install your water cylinder? This will affect your decision in many different ways. For instance, vented cylinders must be located high up in the home. Unvented cylinders can be installed in many other locations, but the expansion vessel will mean that it takes up more space. With that being said, horizontal unvented cylinders can be a viable alternative if the expansion vessel makes a vertical unvented cylinder too tall.

Finally, you need to consider the energy efficiency of the cylinder. How well insulated are the different models you’re contemplating? You also need to think about energy-efficient pumps for thermal store cylinders, as well as your ability to use off-peak tariffs to cut energy-related bills.

Unsure which cylinder is right for you? Get in touch with EasyFlow today. We’d be happy to discuss your needs and help you choose the right one. We are based in Manchester in North West England and cover Manchester, Liverpool, Chester and surrounding areas.

Call now on 0161 941 5571