What Is Storage Type Hot Water vs Instantaneous Units And How Does It Work?
Storage Types Hot Water Units Vs. Continuous Hot Water Units
Storage types use tanks and cylinders to store the water inside where it is heated up using electricity, gas, solar or LPG. They provide hot water based on the amount of water stored inside these tanks. The downside is that water would need first to be heated up inside this storage before it can be used. Heating up the water takes several hours so if you run out of hot water, then you would need to wait for a certain period of time before you get hot water again. That is the major downside of the storage type of hot water units.
Continuous hot water units or instantaneous ones, on the other hand, do not have any storage tanks. They heat up water when you need it. They do not need to have a storage tank since they would just heat up the water through a series of coils (heat exchangers) when you need hot water on your property.
That’s the reason why the trend on hot water units is going with continuous ones.
The same process can be applied to continuous hot water units. Water goes to the special coils where they are heated up. Once these waters are heated up, they produce steam which needs to be released. This steam is then cooled down which generates condensed water. They are very acidic and have a pH of 3-5 and are very corrosive. Non-condensing units would then release this hot steam outside and they would require special alloys to drain this corrosive condense water since they can corrode steel metals and other materials.
In condensing units, the additional heat generated by these steam and exhaust gases is extracted and used to generate further heat instead of just releasing them outside of the unit. They, therefore, generate less condensation and would require less expensive venting materials for disposing of the condensed water. They are there more energy efficient than the standard non-condensing units. So if you are after a more efficient continuous unit, go with the condensing ones.
If you need further information on this or need help with your hot water replacement unit or after hot water maintenance or repair, don’t hesitate to give the Plumbing and Electrical Doctor a call at 13 10 91.