Hydronic heating. cabin/water

[ColdEH]

That's an excellent idea I will do that . Thanks

Regards


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[ColdEH]

Just got the new calorifier all welded up and installed .
As I expected the addition 25 feet of coil really added to the heat transfer . I have much more usable hot water then before .
The extra 4 gallons of hot coolant also helps as the cold water draws it down much slower. Also the new unit I built is square so I could get 2 good inches of blue board insulation all the way around it , takes a full 24 hours to drop 10 degrees Celsius. Webasto runs less often and for a few minutes longer to heat it back up , this is good .
I will post fresh pics this weekend .

Regards

[GILow]

Originally Posted by typhoon

I will post fresh pics this weekend .

Regards

Looking forward to those. I feel you are doing my homework for me. :^)


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[ColdEH]

Just returning the favor for so many contributers on this forum that helped my with a lot of stuff.

Regards

[GILow]

Originally Posted by typhoon

Just returning the favor for so many contributers on this forum that helped my with a lot of stuff.

Regards

I'd be surprised if any of them helped you with the pop-up TV arrangement.

[ColdEH]

Originally Posted by GILow

I'd be surprised if any of them helped you with the pop-up TV arrangement.

LOL That was an original design. Really didn't have anything to go by so I just made it up as I went along

But with my Lithium install , I really relied on Maine Sail's expertise and it has been working great for over a year .

Regards

[richwest3]

This thread was the start of my new water heater and I thought I'd post the results here. I installed a Espar Hydronic II D5S Diesel Heater along with a Webasto plate heat exchanger and I couldn't be happier. We have hot water three minutes after turning on the heater... lots of very hot water. We now have better showers on board than we've had in a lot of nice hotels (curse you water-savers!).

We posted the results on our blog here: I Took a Shower! | Two At Sea

I hope this is helpful to someone.

[GILow]

Great stuff. Really interested in that plate heat exchanger.

Two different solutions to the problem to compare merits. I will be interested to see how they stack up in our warmer climate cruising.


Sent from my iPhone so apologies for weird autocorrect typos.

[bcboomer]

[QUOTE=richwest3;2018419]This thread was the start of my new water heater and I thought I'd post the results here. I installed a Espar Hydronic II D5S Diesel Heater along with a Webasto plate heat exchanger and I couldn't be happier. We have hot water three minutes after turning on the heater...


Fascinating! I've just bought an Espar D5E and am designing the system. In post #29 Sailorchic34 explained how your 17,000 BTU's wouldn't be enough for 2.2 gpm but obviously it is enough for your purposes.
Is there any issue with the Espar needing to start and stop every time you want hot water? Or is it only available when the heating system is on for heating the living areas? I'd love to save the weight and space of a hot water tank.
I was planning an optional loop from the engine to supply heat when motoring to save running the Espar. I wasn't sure about using the same coolant throughout but I see ITR Hurricane show such a setup.
I've got an hydronic towel warmer that puts out 1000 BTU so that should keep the head toasty.

[xslim]

I'm also considering installing Webasto 5kW heater in my 39ft boat.

Do I really need a fan on heat exchanger in a cabin? Is it possible to use a fan-less small radiator? I'm trying to minimize the electricity draw needed for the system...

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by xslim

I'm also considering installing Webasto 5kW heater in my 39ft boat.

Do I really need a fan on heat exchanger in a cabin? Is it possible to use a fan-less small radiator? I'm trying to minimize the electricity draw needed for the system...

It is unlikely you can extract 5kW of heat from a radiator without a fan blowing air across the coils. In my experience you need the fan for two reasons. One is to circulate air so the heat is more evenly distributed in the boat and the second is to remove heat more efficiently from the water. Without the fan you will end up wasting a lot of fuel and probably use more battery power because the heater will run much longer. The fan actually saves fuel and electricity if that makes any sense,

[Lepke]

The case for a fan.
This boat came with a boiler and baseboard radiators. I switched to marine (similar to car) heaters in each area. To use the baseboard radiators I had to have much higher water temps (about 245°F compared to 180°) to heat. Even then it took several hours to completely warm the boat. With forced air I could go to comfort from a cold boat/boiler in 30 to 45 minutes. The boiler temps are now set to 160° to 180° with a considerable savings in diesel. I also can heat the boiler from engine coolant or a coil in a pellet stove.
PEX: there seems to be trouble with PEX if you search the web. Failures, leaching of tubing when exposed to small amounts of chlorine, water damage, law suits, etc.

[ericoh88]

Exhaust Thru Hull for the hydronic heater from

http://itrheat.com/wp-content/upload...cessoriesF.pdf

warn about having exhaust away from the sea water intrusion.

How do you mount this exhaust? same as engine or a separate smoke pipe like a chimney?

Sorry I have to ask, I live in the tropics and will be heading south so I am going to install the hydronic.

[bcboomer]

You should have a riser and put it out the side or stern well above water.
Check Espar's site for the installation manuals. They show it quite clearly.

[sobraon]

Hi,

I copied this across from a post Hydronic heater installation I started yesterday. Any help would be appreciated.

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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