Industrial water heaters Gas or Electric

An industrial water heater provides a domestic hot water system – also know as DHW – which delivers hot water to fixtures used by people at the sink, in the shower, or bath and any other location where warm water may come into contact with humans for bathing or washing up etc. Hot or warm water may also be required for food and beverage commercial and industrial applications, processing or wash down industrial applications in abattoirs etc.

Commercial and industrial applications

Hot water systems or water heaters for commercial or industrial applications can cover hot water requirements for-

Commercial applications – commercial water heaters

Locations such as hospitals, hotels, swimming pools, schools, camping facilities, or sports or leisure centres may be considered commercial hot water heating applications, and thus require commercial water heaters, but we would consider a hospital, due to the way they operate and the capacities of domestic hot water they require, which can run into thousands of litres of warm water per hour.

Hot water systems for hospitals or health care environments

But there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to commercial water heaters, and when a commercial water heater becomes an industrial water heater as such.

Indirect Water heaters – for a hospital or a food or beverage processing plant water heating requirements

Most people go with the gas safe qualifications, in that for any gas appliance over 70kW input, the heating installer must have an industrial gas certificate or qualification to do the installation, so this seems like a good defining point when it comes to the difference between commercial water heaters and industrial water heaters.

Industrial hot water heaters

Industrial hot water systems or hot water heaters tend to be installed, developed and designed for process hot water applications such as food production, preparation, or wash down services, which can require high levels of hot water supply with regard to litres and often at high water heating temperatures.

Solutions for warm water requirements for food and beverage production by Flexiheat UK

These factors make our gas water heaters our most popular product range when it comes to solutions for water heating systems. Because gas delivers a remarkable amount of energy through a relatively small pipe, and because of recent legislative changes, any industrial gas water heater must now be condensing to provide maximum efficiency and benefits in reducing greenhouse emissions.

A water heater for a process application is normally just a simple calculation of the volume of water required and the temperature rise required.

Heat pump hot water heating

Heat pumps aren’t suitable water heating solutions at present as they can’t achieve the required water temperatures that the customer often requires, as heat pump systems can only achieve a temperature in the 50 to 55C range. To get up to the required stored water temperature of at least 60 °C, they have to use electric immersion heaters to top up the heat supplies—in essence, they can be called hybrid water heaters.

Whether the technology for heat pumps develops so they can achieve the higher hot water temperatures and kW capacities is to be seen. Hopefully so, as they have high efficiency. If you have the power supply available, as these units normally require a 3 phase electrical connection and take up a lot of space as storage tanks are normally required as accessories.

At present, heat pumps products aren’t really suitable for domestic water heating systems for commercial and industrial applications.

Electric water heaters

We have a dedicated electric water heaters web page that goes into full detail on the capacities in litres of the tanks and kW ratings available here.- Electric industrial and commercial water heaters

Commercial & Industrial electric water heaters from Flexiheat UK

Industrial gas water heaters

As mentioned previously, our gas water heater range is the most popular hot water systems for industrialised requirements due to the high pressure, kW, and heat output the range can produce.

The cost-to-output makes this water heater range a favourite with many a trading customer of ours.

We do a range of gas instantaneous water heaters with an output up to 300 kW which can provide up to 174 litres / minute of domestic hot water, with a high modulation ratio of 1 to 60.

instantaneous gas water heaters- condensing in cascade complete with pipework rig from Flexiheat UK

Full details are listed on our dedicated gas water heaters webpage here – industrial gas hot water heating 

Or we can use these units with a DHW storage tank to account for peak demands or loads which are often found in process applications – these are detailed here – Domestic hot water storage tanks 

Contact us

Should you require any more support, selection and design expertise or cost on our industrial water heating products for commercial and industrial applications with high capacities in terms of litres and kW output, then please fill out your details on the contact us form page on the website, or feel free to contact our UK sales team professionals on 01202 822221 who are on hand to support and assist you with any part of your hot water heater project. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for an overview of our latest news and products.