Boiler / hot water cylinder, please help me work out what’s what!

[peachmornings]

Hello! I’ve just moved into my first flat on my own and am not sure how to turn the heating or the hot water on! I have a separate hot water tank and boiler in the airing cupboard (see pics), sorry this is probably a really obvious question but what’s the difference, and how do I turn hot water on without the heating also coming on? I’ve just turned all the switches to on and the heating has come on but hot water isn’t coming out of the taps, I’m not sure if this is because it takes some time to heat in the cylinder? Any wisdom welcomed because I’m totally clueless

Sorry this is photo of the cylinder

That’s the same as mine. So the cylinder is the tank. The orange thing is to collect condensation as the tank gets hot. Neither is the boiler.

you should have a boiler and heating controls elsewhere.

@Trying2help thanks, confused as to why the radiators are coming on if none of this has anything to do with the boiler? Does the cylinder affect radiators?

You should have a separate system boiler somewhere I would think? And controls? The tank can run on the immersion (that orange switch you turned on) but it's much more expensive to do so v gas from the boiler.

The white thing is your hot water tank, the orange thing above it is the expansion vessel as you have an unvented system.

Vented is cold water tank usually found in a loft that feeds into the hot water tank, usually just below it.

Yours is an unvented system where the cold water feed pipe goes directly into the hot water cylinder. Because it is under mains pressure it has an expansion vessel for safety.

Your boiler should be a rectangular box somewhere else in the property. Hope that helps.

Handy little video, don't worry about all the pipework but it has a little diagram showing you how that tank fits in with the boiler.

Your cylinder/tank is unrelated to the heating.

wheres your boiler? Is there a switch near it?

You need to find your thermostat. It's a device for controlling when and where the heat/water come on and is usually mounted on the wall. In my house it's in the kitchen

The wire going into the bottom of the tank is the immersion heater. It’s the back up if your boiler isn’t working. We’ve never actually used ours as our water is heated by the oil boiler.
You should have a separate boiler with a control panel next to it.

The narrow white rectangle box is your electric boiler I would say! Possibly a wet system with rads etc - but elec and not gas.

i have found these in the communal area, I’m not sure what any of it is

Step away from the communal cupboard 😆 I think you need to find the programmer in your property first. It will be a square or rectangular small box on a wall, generally in a hallway or landing. There may be more than one if it's in zones.

You don't have a conventional gas boiler. The long narrow box is an electric water heater that will heat hot water and radiators as when demanded by the heating controls.

No, that's definitely not a boiler! It's part of the Megaflo hot water system she has.

Have you tried letting the hot water run for a while (at least a couple of minutes)?

Im pretty certain - It really is the boiler!

The long white rectangularr box with the pump above is an electric boiler. The red round vessel is the expansion vessek for the heating system. The white round vessel is the expansion vessel for the unvented hot water cylinder and the Megaflo is your hot water storage cylinder.

In your other photos, the one with the blue pipe is a water meter.

@Moosey65 thank you (and also to everyone else who has replied) - I agree that must be the boiler as there is nowhere else in the building it could be if not. Am I right in thinking then that the red switch under the water cylinder controls hot water (when switched on hot water will come out of taps) and the switch on the boiler when turned on will turn the heating on?

The red switch is an immersion heater which cost a fortune to heat the water so only switch it on when you need hot water. It takes about 30-40 mins for it to heat a tank full of water up and isn’t instant. Not sure how that electric boiler works that others have identified.

Yes, the red switch is your immersion heater switch to heat the hot water.

I can't really see any pipework connecting the circulation pipework from the boiler to the cylinder. Nor can i see a thermostat on the cylinder so assume the cylinder is heated solely by the immersion heater.

Well you learn something new every day. I had no idea that long rectangular thing was an electric boiler and it is. I googled the brand name. If yours has a serial number on it google that and look for the instruction manual.

Are you renting it or have you bought your flat? Could you contact the landlord/previous owner for help? Or tomorrow knock on some doors in the building as they might have the same system as you. Feel free to have a friend with you if you are feeling a bit nervous.

Most boilers have a small hand sized control panel, might be on a wall might not be meaning you can move it around.

Thanks to everyone who helped yesterday! I’ve found a label to confirm that the long white box is the boiler, I’ve switched this on and also the cylinder (last night) but still no hot water, am I doing something wrong?

Sorry just to add this, not sure how to work it?