Do You Need a Direct Cylinder or an Indirect Cylinder?

 

 

 

 

Direct or Indirect Cylinder?

This is a pretty fundamental choice, so it is a question you need to be 100% sure about. Luckily, it’s not difficult once you understand it.

A Direct cylinder is a hot water cylinder which contains one or more electric elements which are used to heat the water. These cylinders are for hot water only (i.e. not heating) and are completely self contained (i.e. they are not connected to another boiler).

An INDIRECT cylinder heats the water by an external boiler (for example, a gas boiler) which heats the water inside a coil which then (indirectly) heats the water in the cylinder.

As well as heating the water, the contents of the coil is also often pumped to radiators to provide the central heating.

Usually, there is also a single electrical element in an indirect cylinder, which is used as a back-up (or top-up) for the external boiler. If you’d like to understand any of this in more detail, the Advice Centre articles on the right hand side may be interesting.

Installing Indirect Hot Water Cylinders

Some of our favourite Direct Cylinders:

Gledhill Unvented Stainless ES Direct Cylinder 200L SESINPDR200
Gledhill Unvented Stainless ES Direct Cylinder 200L SESINPDR200
Sku: EDDGHSESINPDR200
£435.61 £363.01
Joule Direct Cyclone Hot Water Cylinder
Joule Direct Cyclone Hot Water Cylinder 250L Standard Boiler TCEMVD-0250LFD
Sku: EDDJOULED250L
£910.80 £759.00
Joule Cyclone Air 200L Direct Standard Unvented Cylinder
Joule Cyclone Air 200L Direct Standard Unvented Cylinder TCEMVB-0200LFC
Sku: EDDJAIR05
£1,138.80 £949.00

This page is part of the 'helpmechoosemy...' series which helps you choose exactly the right product, by answering a small number of simple questions. Using these pages will lead you to an appropriate selection of hand dryers, water heaters, or boiling water products so you can make your final choice. Along the way, you will find links to our Advice Centre articles which will give you more information about each of the choices you are making, and a lot of information about each of the questions.

Of course if you need any other help or have very specific requirements, our experts are always on hand to get you the right answer, and to suggest different brands which may represent better value for money. So don't be shy about giving them a call or selecting the option on the bottom left of the screen to get us to call you back.