Advance Appliances offers a wide range of solutions including hot water cylinders and electric heating products. Rob Turner, Brand Support at the company answers some questions about a range of topics, including its pre-plumbed cylinders.
Q. What are the advantages of a pre-plumbed cylinder and what components are included?
With a pre-plumbed and pre-wired cylinder we can ensure simplicity and peace of mind for the installer and end user. Some of our products can take up to eight hours to build in our workshop, this time on site could easily be doubled without pre-cut pipe and wires, components laid out on a bench and the know how of how to build without consulting a wiring or plumbing diagram. Removing the head scratching time gives the installer an almost plug and play system leaving them time to concentrate on the install.
Another advantage of a pre-plumbed and pre-wired system is component selection, we test and build all of our cylinders with brands they recognise and quality assured components to ensure performance is at its best.
Q. What type of properties are best suited to an electric combination boiler?
Electric Combination Boilers are suitable to properties which require wet central heating and mains pressure hot water for both comfort and lifestyle. Tending to be installed in flats and apartments where a fossil fuel style boiler cannot be fitted the ECB range will deliver mains pressure hot water for up to two bathrooms and heating for four or five radiators.
Our Electric Combination Boilers work on a thermal store principal and look somewhat different to a usual combination boiler, so it is safe to say they won’t be found hanging on a wall. However, unlike a typical combination boiler they deliver mains pressure hot water to taps, baths and showers for user comfort.
Q. Do installers require electric qualifications to fit electric boilers?
We have a range of Electric Boiler options ranging from our 2.7kW Plug N Glow Mini Boiler up to our 12kW eGlow Electric Flow Boiler, each system will have different requirements and require different levels of expertise to install, we would therefore always advise to seek professional advice and check qualifications required before installing one of our electric boilers.
Q. Do you supply solutions specifically designed to work with heat pumps?
For many years now Advance Appliances have been manufacturing cylinders specifically designed to work with Heat Pumps. Working with manufacturers of heat pumps we have designed a range of cylinders and buffer tanks to work in harmony with the whole system installed.
Heat pumps will often work on a lower flow and return temperature and a standard cylinder will not work efficiently in these situations so critical components such as the internal coil have been redesigned to help with efficiency to achieve the COP of the heat pump and reduce energy consumption.
Q. What advice can you give to installers looking to correctly size a cylinder for a system with a heat pump?
There are many tools out there including the one on our website for calculating the size of cylinder required for a household and most are using the same data set which has been formulated by the Hot Water Association.
Our advice to anyone looking to size a cylinder is to look at the system as a whole and not based upon the space available or location of the cylinder. When calculating the litres required you will need to consider the heat source, the number of bathrooms and outlets (baths at 100 litres and showers at 50 litres) and also the number of occupants within the property. Another aspect to look at is renewable energy, if you have energy available from a renewable source such as solar PV then you may wish to store more hot water to take full advantage of the excess energy available.
Q. Where can installers turn for more details and advice about your cylinders, buffer tanks and thermal stores?
Our website www.advanceappliances.co.uk offers a full range of product information including specification sheets and installation guides which are available to download and review at any time. These will detail what heat sources are compatible with each cylinder, the physical dimensions of each size and instructions on how to install each model. Our technically trained staff are also on hand to answer any questions. You can contact the team on email at [email protected] or call the office on 01543 377723.
