Hot Water Cylinder Repair and Replacement 

Hot Water Cylinder Repair and Replacement 

A faulty hot water system can be more than just an inconvenience, it can also be a hazard (especially if there’s a gas or water leak).

Not only that but an old and inefficient cylinder can cost you money to keep, using more fuel than modern cylinders.

More about how it works

This system uses many different parts to heat the water

It consists of a hot water cylinder, a cold water storage cistern or tank, an open vent pipe, and a heat source to heat the water.

There are two types of open vented hot water direct heating and indirect heating. Direct heating–the water is heated directly from the heat source either by an immersion heater or by the boiler this is very old school way of doing it

Indirect heating the central heating and the hot water are separate. The water is heated via a coil (heat exchanger) from a boiler. This is done because there is a set of radiators connected to the boiler, in this case water in the central heating system slowly becomes contaminated by iron residues from the radiators which would make the hot water unusable for washing (see powerflushing).  The cylinder is the main part of the open vented hot water system this is where the hot water is heated. The heat can come from an immersion heater, directly from a boiler or indirectly from a boiler using a coil fitted inside the cylinder. Often the indirectly heated cylinders come with an immersion heater back up in case of  boiler breakdown. The cylinder coil (heat exchanger) is the tube that is often fitted to a cylinder to heat up water using the water from the central heating system. The pipe itself is coiled up inside the cylinder to give as much chance as possible for the pipe to ‘touch’ the water in the cylinder and heat it up. The storage cistern-is the reservoir of cold water used to supply the cylinder. This is always positioned above the cylinder to give a head of pressure to make the water flow out of the cylinder

This is still a very popular system to have in peoples homes however mostly this is a job involving upgrading to the latest in energy efficient equipment like pre foam lagging cylinder and plastic tanks.