Water heaters provide hot water for homes and commercial buildings. They can be stand-alone water heaters or can be combined with central heating boilers that warm the space in the building.
Fuel
Depending on what fuel is available in the home or commercial building, water heaters can run on natural gas, electricity or renewable energy sources such as solar and heat pumps.
Position
Water heaters can be wall hung or floor standing. Smaller capacity water heaters are more likely to be wall hung, whereas heaters that provide larger amounts of hot water are normally floor standing.
Types of water heater
- Vented (open outlet) storage water heaters have an open vent to the atmosphere to allow the water to expand during heating. This can be a vent pipe back at the cistern feeder tank or an open outlet such as a spout or vented tap.
- Unvented (closed / mains pressure) storage water heaters need to have a device that will accommodate water expansion during heating. This may be an expansion vessel, a valve, an internal expansion air bubble or pipe work in the cold feed part of the system that is long enough for the water to expand into. Unvented water heaters typically provide higher flow rates and pressures than vented systems, although the performance is dependent upon the flow and pressure of the incoming water supply.
- Vented and unvented water heaters can both be heated either directly, ie by gas fired or electric immersion heater, or indirectly, ie by a heating coil inside the water heater which itself is heated by a remote boiler, solar panel or heat pump.
- Instantaneous water heaters provide hot water on demand, without the need to store it. These water heaters can use either natural gas or electricity. The higher the kilowatt rating of the heater, the higher the flow rate of the hot water will be.
Baxi Group has a large range of all of these types of water heaters, made with the best materials and in accordance with the highest standards in the industry.
