Best combination electric hot water immersion cylinder?

[DJB]

Hi I need some advice choosing a direct combination immersion cylinder i.e. one that has a mains-fed cold-water tank on top and the water is heated in a bigger tank below by an electric immersion element. It's to replace an old

12 gallon rusting one in a holiday home that I own, and from the research I've done I've now got a list of manufacturers who all seem to offer similar sizes, but the thing is I don't know which one to choose... Can someone tell me which would be considered to be the best manufacturer? My list so far is: Albion, Newark, Fortic/Range, Telford, or an unknown make from this website: 'm basically looking for a cylinder that is made to last and has very good insulation. Thanks if anyone can help David

[John Stumbles]

I think you'll find they're pretty much of a muchness. Things to watch are that if you're in a hard water area the electric immersion element should be a suitable type (I think the name is 'Incalloy') and you can reduce or eliminate scaling in the cylinder by putting a Fernox bag-in-tank type scale inhibitor in the top, tank, part. Yoy get these from some plumbers' merchants (round here Plumb Center [sic] does them).

For extra insulation you can put some extra Rockwool (or fibreglass - yuk) around the tank, and properly insulate the hot water pipework.

[meow2222]

HW tanks are usually in a cupboard. If so, you can improve insulation a bit further by filling the space all round the tank with loose fill insulation. Dont let the insulation cover the mains flex though, that needs to dissipate its heat.

NT

[Alan]

website is 'IFS (Portsmouth) Ltd'.

It arrived in about 2 days, exactly to the design I agreed to by phone / fax and was very well made.

I went for a solar-cylinder with twin coils and extra-thick insulation.

It's been installed for about 2 months now and has been fine.

Alan.

[DJB]

Thanks for the info. On the website they mention 30mm or 60mm Rockwool insulation (I guess you ordered 60mm?), in your opinion is the insulation OK? The other manufacturers seem to offer 50mm or 100mm urethane foam and I'm wondering how they compare, although I do agree with the other replies about adding additional insulation once the cylinder is installed so maybe the choice of insulation doesn't really matter... David

[Alan]

Hello,

Yes, I went with 60mm insulation. The finished product is wrapped in plastic sheet type material so all you see is a cylinder shaped object. Seems to hold in the heat pretty well!

Alan.