How Does Unvented Cylinder Maintenance Save You Money?

Heating water for use in your home isn’t optional. Your family needs to bathe, you have dishes that must be washed, and you likely use hot water for other things around the house. Of course, all that heated water requires fuel, either gas or electric, and you’ll pay for each unit you use.

The good news is that there are many ways to make your water heater more efficient to reduce the amount of energy it uses. One of the best options is a Maintenance Plan. How does maintenance save you money?

Improved Heating

One of the most important ways that regular maintenance can save you money on heating is related to, well, heating water. To understand this, we need to delve into water chemistry briefly. All mains water in the UK contains dissolved solid materials, such as lime. Over time, these solids settle out of the water and into your cylinder.

As they settle onto the surface of your cylinder’s immersion heaters, they can form a thick coating. That prevents the heat generated by the heater from reaching the surrounding water and forces it to work harder and longer to reach the temperature on your thermostat.

Regular maintenance includes draining your cylinder and removing that coating of solid materials, ensuring that your immersion heaters are free of obstructions. You’ll notice hotter water and reduced run times.

Eliminated Cylinder Capacity Reduction

Another way that unvented cylinder maintenance saves you money is by keeping your cylinder’s capacity at its peak. This is also directly related to the presence of dissolved solids within your water supply. While those solids definitely affect your immersion heater, they have an even greater impact on the bottom of your unvented cylinder. Here, they form layers of sedimentary detritus.

Over time, those layers can grow surprisingly thick, reducing the volume of your cylinder. This has a couple of impacts. First, it means that you’ll have less hot water available to you at any given time because the cylinder holds less water. Second, it means that the cylinder will cycle on more frequently to heat water as you use it.

Maintenance helps reduce these cost drivers by draining the sediment from your cylinder and slowing down the speed at which its capacity is reduced.

Don’t Let Hidden Inefficiencies Cost You Money

Dissolved solids in your water can have a dramatic, noticeable impact on your energy usage and your costs. Regular maintenance can help prevent that. In addition, it can extend the lifespan of your unvented cylinder, reducing the need to replace it and saving you thousands of pounds over the life of the unit.

Interested in learning more about what’s included in an annual maintenance plan? Get in touch with us at EasyFlow. Our engineers are all G3-certified so they can service, maintain, repair, and install unvented cylinders throughout the UK. Our maintenance plans are among the best in the industry for homeowners who want both peace of mind and the ability to save money.