Hot water cylinders are not easy to grasp with, it has to be handled with special care. There are different types of boiling water cylinders which are mostly confusing to understand. Basically these cylinders are based on two types- How you heat the water and how you will distribute the hot water.
Before buying a hot water cylinder NZ you should double check it to ensure that it is correct cylinder needed for installation. Returning of hot water container will be charged, you have to pay restocking fee while returning. Hence it is better to check it before to avoid more charges.
Different types of cylinder:-
Direct cylinder
In direct cylinder, the water is not heated in boilers or solar panel instead it is heated directly by the hot water cylinder through the immersion heater inside it. Some of the direct cylinders come with more than one immersion heater inside it to provide more powerful hot water quickly. A direct cylinder comes in two models- vented and unvented cylinders.
Indirect cylinder
An indirect hot water cylinder NZ provides the necessary heat to the cylinder. This generates hot water and also uses the stored water for backup if the main source fails to provide hot water. In indirect cylinder the water is heated by boiler or solar panels. This cylinder contains heat exchanger inside it which transfers heat from the boiler to the cylinder. In some indirect cylinder there is immersion heater as well, this heater is used to add heat to the stored water if needed. Hence indirect cylinder tends to generate hot water quickly than the direct cylinder. Indirect cylinders are either vented or unvented.
Vented cylinder
Vented cylinders are supplied by a large tank of cold water. A vented hot water cylinder is the most conventional way when there is cold storage tank; it supplies cold water to the hot water cylinder on gravity. It contains a pipe called “vent pipe” through which the cold water is carried to the hot water drum. The cold water is first heated from immersion heater which is already in the hot water cylinder or through the boiler. The biggest advantage of vented cylinder is that they are cheaper than unvented cylinders and needs no maintenance. However vented cylinder sometimes may deliver low pressure water. The system of vented cylinders is simple to use.
Unvented cylinders
In unvented hot water cylinder NZ there is no need of cold water tank, it is directly connected to the main system. Like vented cylinders, there isn’t any pipe or tank to deal with overload water. There is an inbuilt safety unit at the top which deals with the excess water. Unvented cylinders takes less space than the vented cylinders and are bit expensive than the vented cylinders.
Unvented and vented cylinders both can be directly heated by the immersion heater as well as it can be indirectly heated by a boiler or solar panel. Mostly a boiler is used at the most of the houses. Gledhill is one the largest manufacturer of hot water cylinder in UK. They also manufacture vented and unvented cylinders with full energy products.