A LACK OF SERVICING will result in early failure of your Kingspan or Unvented cylinder.

Your Kingspan Aerocyl or any unvented cylinder will fail prematurely. It’s a fact I’m afraid. You’d expect if for your boiler if you didn’t get it serviced annually. But what about your hot water cylinder tucked away under all that washing? It’s out of sight in that dark airing cupboard. Let’s talk about a modern hot water, pressurised unvented cylinder like the one in this picture. It’s connected to a Mitsubishi Ecodan Air Source Heat Pump. All very specialist and expensive to buy. They’re absolutely brilliant appliances for providing copious amounts of piping water with excellent water pressure to tap outlets etc.

In one picture you’ll see a red and a white round vessel above the cylinder. The red one serves the central heating system and the white one (potable) serves the cylinder. These contain an air pressure, normally around 3 Bar, and it cushions the expansion as the water is heated. If the vessel pressure drops and is not replenished at least annually, the likelihood of failure increases rapidly.

It happened today, as I reflect on writing this article. We received a call out to a property on the new build estate of Augusta Park in Andover. A relatively new home of 6 years old and a leaking hot water cylinder. On investigation it was diagnosed that the cylinder jacket had failed. Not a major problem we thought because at least the cylinder has a 25 year manufacturer’s warranty? Now here’s the nasty bit…. Because it hadn’t been serviced annually the manufacturer stated that the warranty was void! We sourced a replacement cylinder today. £1200 just to buy, never mind the labour to fit it. Ouch….!

There’s a large number of these new build properties springing up around Andover in Hampshire, and a large number of these cylinders installed within them. They need servicing annually along with your boiler; Read the label on the cylinder, it states that it requires annual servicing. Ignore it at your peril!