Rapid Recovery Cylinder

[3CC]

Hi All,

Recently ordered a rapid recovery cylinder from Lycris Byrne. It arrived and looked just like a normal cylinder. Nothing unusual about the coil - it enters the cylinder and loops 7 times and then exits. Is there any obvious way to check that it is rapid recovery. I have already tried contacting LB via their website Technical Support page but did not get to much help. In fact they said the coil length is 3m on a R/R cylinder which does not make much sense to me - seems too short.

Does anyone have any good ideas how to check this?

Thanks.

3CC

 

[Towger]

From their site the picture of 'Rapid Recovery' cylinder has 7/8 coils while the normal ones have 3/4. Depending on how you count them.

 

[3CC]

Yes I did look at that it but this link

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Domestic_Hot_Water_Systems

(the only one I can find relevant to this) says you should have a surface area of approx 1.2 m2 for a cylinder slightly smaller than mine. (Or 0.6 m2 for a standard non rapid recovery cylinder.)

I estimate that 7 loops at 250mm diameter is 5.5m of coil pipe which at 27.4mm outside diameter gives about 0.47 m2. OK maybe the coil is 300mm which would give 0.57m2. Still a long way short of 1.2 m2.

By the way, the coil does not have fins or multiple smaller pipes to increase surface area. Just a simple copper pipe.