Hi,
I am about to embark on a
heating project for 'Spirit of Sobraon'.
We have reached higher latitudes on our voyage toward
Alaska and now is the time to finally fit
heating to the
boat. After almost 7 years of never ending summers some are questioning our sanity.
I will be installing an eberspächer 10 hydronic
heater and I was hoping for some input from those of you who are in the colder climates with similar systems as to there
plumbing and
installation.
We have arrived in
Korea and have sourced PEX Piping and fittings from a local house hold hydronic floor
installation company and I also have rubber hot
water hose and fittings that I can use. The unit should arrive from
Europe soon.
I will list a few questions that you may be able to help us with. Not having any
boating or
English speaking technicians here in
Korea is making it a little difficult to find good information.
1. My intention is to plumb the Thermostatic controlled fan heaters in Parallel. Is this better than Series?
2. Should I also install isolation solenoids to assist zoning or just use the fan thermostats?
3. Is PEX better than Rubber
heater hose? My
current fresh hot/cold
water system is PEX.
4. I intend to use a plate heat transfer block from the
engine in series with the hydronic return line to make use of
engine waste heat and lower heating
fuel use whilst motoring. (Good or bad?)
5. I have a very good 40 litre waste heat/240v hot water clorifier connected. It only has one heat coil used by the engine and a 240v immersion heater so I intend
plumbing a plate
heat exchanger with a thermostatic mixer valve in parallel in the hydronic system then pass the hot fresh water line from the clorifier through it to provide instantaneous hot water whilst the heater is running and the engine and
power are not available . (Good or Bad?)
6. The eberspächer 10 will be mounted in a lazarette locker to facilitate ease of supply and
exhaust. This will put the unit about 1 mtr above the lowest fan heater on the
boat. Is this really a problem? There is conflicting data on the Eberspächer website that quote 500mm as the maximum. I will also install a header tank above the heater.
7. The
current intention is to install 4 thermostat controlled 1.7kw fan heaters and the hot water heat exchanger with the possible inclusion of a towel warmer radiator in the
head at a later date. Is the eberspächer 10 big enough in your experience? It specs say that it's output is about 9.8kw on start up on high. The heaters are rated at 1.7kw. What is not clear is how many kw/btu's they consume.
8.
Condensation is a concern. We have not had the problem in the past as we have been in the tropics and the boat is very well insulated except for the
cabin top side bulkheads and port holes. Running our 1kw Air conditioner, whilst in
marinas, in extreme heat and humidity kept the boat at more than 10 degrees C below outside temps. Any thoughts?
I will be documenting and
posting the information about the install on our
Projects and Maintenance - Blog Summary View page of our website. Information for RV's is readily available on the net, however I haven't found much information for boat installations. Hopefully it will be of assistance for those that follow our
project.
Commercial installation for us is not an option as we have not found any
boating experts in
Japan or Korea. I have seen some of the US quotes on installation on boating blogs and they are staggering. Considering it is really only plumbing and some carpentry I don't see the job as beyond most boat owners.
Thanks for any input.
Garry
sv Spirit of Sobraon
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