Immersion heaters, sometimes known as megaflop boilers or unvented hot water systems, heat water using electricity, the same way the kettle in your kitchen does. Immersion heaters are connected to their own power supply via a cable, and can be easily turned on and off. There’s no need to constantly heat the water in your immersion heater, and can be simply turned on, when hot water is required. However, the electric resistance heater does not instantly heat up the water in the cylinder, this can take several minutes.
Although often associated with much older properties, immersion heaters have now found their place within the modern home as a back-up water heater for households with combi boilers, or a potential source of ‘free’ hot water, if your house has the ability to harness solar technology.
One of the long-standing problems with immersion heaters, is that when switched on, they only have the ability to heat a whole tank of water, regardless of how little, or how much, hot water you actually need to use. This not only means you have to wait for the whole tank to heat up, before you can use even just a little hot water, but the process can also use an unnecessary amount of electricity.
Whilst many households successfully and efficiently utilise immersion heaters in partnership with solar technology, or as a back up source of hot water, if you are utilising an immersion heater as your primary source of hot water, you should certainly consider a combi boiler replacement. Our Copper all-in-one gas combi boilers not only deliver fresh hot water on demand, but are almost certainly cheaper to run than a traditional immersion option.
