Capacity of Hot Water cylinder

A

allendog

Registered User
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Hi,
Had the bath for the first time in our new home - only to find that all the hot water run off from the cylinder would fit only less than half the bath.. even tho' we had left the power on for 3 hours. No way of knowing if the cylinder is full of hot water because of green polythene lining, not lagging jacket. Yet in our old house, it was possible to heat the cylinder for one hour and get the bath full of hot water. While viewing a show apartmetn the other day, we noticed the cylinder in that apt was huge, presumably because the apartment has 2/3 showers.
What's the best way of ensuring a complete bath fill of hot water?
Thanks,
allendog
 
Did you heat the cylinder using an immersion heater? If so was the switch selector switched to sink as opposed to bath? ( I know it's an obvious one but let's rule out the obvious before examining other possibilities?) Has the thermostat on the heater been turned down to low maybe?
 
Are you sure that the elements in the cylinder are working OK? Perhaps only the smaller "sink" one is working hence the lack of hot water. Get an electrician to look at it unless you can manage a DIY inspection and/or repair job yourself.

Post crossed with previous one.
 
We have the same problem. The electrician looked at it and adjusted a setting at the top of the cylinder, but it still wasn't filling the bath. We've since worked out what the problem is.

The bath is much bigger than the cylinder!

We've come to the solution of either having a shower instead, or filling the bath in two installments. Takes about 20minutes to heat a cylinder full, and the first load cools while the second is heating up.

We're probably not going to get a bigger cylinder because of the cost involved with ever increasing energy prices.
 
An average cylinder (as fitted in most two bed apartments/ three bed semis up) has a capacity of 227 litres. It would be most unusual for a dwelling to be fitted with a bath and a cylinder of insufficient size to fill it. A 227 litre cylinder would be about 48" in height.
 
Possibly an extremely common wiring error. Try heating the water with the switch on Sink setting.

If it does the job then it involves a one-minute wiring rectification within the switch.

Adjustments at the top of the cylinder sets the temperature, not the volume of water heated.
 
SineWave said:
Adjustments at the top of the cylinder sets the temperature, not the volume of water heated.
Click to expand...

True, but an immersion heater that cuts out at 45 deg. will not help matters when trying to run a bath and may distort the perception of what is at fault, if you know what I mean?
 
An average cylinder (as fitted in most two bed apartments/ three bed semis up) has a capacity of 227 litres. It would be most unusual for a dwelling to be fitted with a bath and a cylinder of insufficient size to fill it. A 227 litre cylinder would be about 48" in height.
Click to expand...

I've just measured my bath and cylinder. The cylinder was 36" high (to very top) and the bath has a maximum capacity of 390 litres (60cm x 50cm x 130cm - averaged for curves, I'm not getting into calculus for this!) However, I don't fill my bath to the brim, so we can duduct maybe a third off, giving 260 litres.

It seems that I fall into the most unusual situation of undersized cylinder/oversize bath.
 
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