jedi master

no problem, i have one. floor bolt kit and backboiler available, plenty of heat be fine for up to 55' boat i'd say

1- be careful when dismantling heater and make sure you note how it all came apart. take pics if it helps. remove sensors before trying to get water jacket/flame tube out. 2- while its in bits you may as well de-coke it manually (soak in cillit bang, wire wool??). if the flame tube is 'sooted' into the water jacket, if you cant separate them without too much trouble, leave it alone, very expensive/not economic to replace. 3- use new seals and gaskets 4- be careful when reassembling heater. the high and low temp sensors sit on little flat 'seats' on the water jacket. if you take the water jacket and flame tube out, put the water jacket back in first before trying to refit the sensors or you may break one. if the sensors dont locate properly the heater simply wont work properly lot to be said for taking them to a service agent, ok, it'll cost you but they're fully trained, experienced, have diagnostic testers and you should get a warranty or at least some come-back. PS - starter battery to run heater? no no no.

^^^^ aha, so does that mean microprocessor controlled "adaptive" chargers doing 10s of thousands of calculations and measurements per second are any different to a thyristor driven spikey input and ripply output heart interface 'slightly better than a square wave' dinosaur 40kg "2 blokes to fit it to a wall" combi?? ahem. power conversion methods, control of output etc, yes, of course, blah blah blah. "no, of course the heart interface is sooo much better and looks after your batteries just as well" ok then.

i like all this stuff. really. in case it came across differently in another thread, im in agreement with gibbo, i think 'alternator controllers' are generally pointless. where i disagree is relying on an alternator with or without a controller as a primary means of charging. if you want 'topping up', keeping up with the demands of loads etc until you can hook up to mains then fine, but there really isnt a substitute for a proper mains powered adaptive charger - not if you want to get the best performance/lifetime out of your batteries. in my opinion whether an alternator is machine sensed or battery sensed, it cant charge a battery to 100% within a reasonable time frame and optimize a battery's life expectancy while doing it. they're great for starter batteries, dont get me wrong, but for domestic batteries that are deeply discharged, theres no 'magic bit' of the regulator that tells it that it needs to overcome the growing internal resistance of the battery as its charge increases by holding an absorption voltage for 3-4 hours, then revert to float or maintenance charging to ensure the batts dont get cooked. the number of failed batteries ive seen where the root of the problem is down to people relying solely on alternators for charging is ridiculous, and simply wasteful as well as expensive. ok, in some cases, some folk simply have no other choice, but these are the folk who need to make sure they put by a few quid to change their batteries every year. i dont want to be perceived as argumentative, im really not, but when folk start coming out with statements like 'adaptive chargers dont work' i think thats just rubbish. I'm sure Mr Sterling, Mr Victron, Mr Mastervolt et al would probably find a law suit in stuff like that if they felt so compelled, especially after over 30 years of devotion to this cause, hundreds of thousands of pounds collectively invested in research and development alongside battery companies etc. i can cope with being accused of being some kind of ignoramus gibbo (im actually really not), and i recognise and respect that you've designed some gear and shift it though merlin etc, but i shift a bit too, my friend, probably more than you...

as per all of the above. i'd say its most likely to be the pressure switch, a lot of chandlers carry shurflo spares munster simms are actually whale, shurflo comes from the US.

sure is, but voltage isnt the thing to be monitoring. a battery will read over 12V even under a small load anywhere between 50% and 100% charge, and by the time the voltage starts to drop significantly you're probably already starting to discharge too deeply, depending on what type of batts you have. some battery capacity monitors have a contact or relay you can use to signal a generator remote start module. to charge your batts properly the genertor start module needs a timer to ensure the genset runs for long enough, usually several hours. can get a bit involved, usually because theres not many companies with a lot of experience with this sort of set up, but i've seen these systems work very well on yachts and big power boats when set up correctly. talk to energy solutions or on-board energy.

as gary said, avoid specific blown air systems. the air pipe runs are usually too long on a narrow boat. the advantage with blown air is you'll feel the effect of the heat more quickly but it actually takes longer to heat the materials of the boat. open a couple of windows before everything is warm and woosh, all your warm air is gone. if you want 'some' blown air the best thing to do is use a 'wet' heater like the hydronic or thermo c, and use a small matrix heater in place of one of the rads. make sure its a matrix with a switchable fan that you can control. Kalori do a good range, from Kuranda and one or two other suppliers. in terms of eberspacher vs webasto, the internal designs/prinicipals are similar so in spite of all the bickering between users and advocates of each brand, theres not really much to choose between them. as per other threads on here, 'red diesel', gas oil etc will produce more bi-products than white, road fuel or whatever you want to call it when you burn it, so servicing these heaters properly and regularly is critical. follow the installation manual, dont just pop it in place of your old heater, and its worth getting someone with 'experience' to check the plumbing. I'm pretty sure Eberspacher have a bigger dealer network so spares and servicing should be easier to sort out. if you're going to fit a compact heater like Eberspacher or Webasto, dont get sucked into the 'bigger is better' train of thought. the smallest hydronic heater is enough to heat a 70 foot narrowboat or 50 foot widebeam. make sure your flow and return pipes are 22mm and the 15mm bits are just where you've T'd for rads. also if your calorifier is the first place the hot water goes, consider fitting an appliance valve so you can slightly restrict the flow through it, other wise the hot water can just go through the coil in the cylinder and straight back to the heater, fooling it into thinking the system is up to temp and subsequently shutting down or cycling before all the rads get hot. you wont get this sort of 'insider stuff' from your average plumber... if you live on board its worth having a multifuel or diesel stove, possibly with a back boiler as well as the heater (not plumbed into the same closed system). if you need to service the heater when its -5 outside and could be facing a few days of 'down time', its just good sense to have something as back up. I'd be a little wary about using 'domestic' heaters on board a boat, any warranty will usually be invalidated and they're not really desgined to 'rock about', even a little bit.

ok, i bow my head in shame, i know nothing, and clearly all my life i've been in the wrong job. I wonder if halfrauds are hiring?? I wonder if anyone had any idea of how many battery/charging problems i've solved over the years with my total lack of knowledge, inexperience and after being sucked in by marketing bullsh1t, that others would share your opinion, gibbo? you dont know who i am, where ive worked or what ive done, nor will you. i dont think i have anything else to contribute on here. have fun with your electrics, folks, gibbo will sort it for you!!

a battery has an 'optimum' charge time, force feeding them may make you think you're charging more quickly but really it just makes them gas and/or warps the plates and shortens their life. Alternator controllers like adverc basically switch the alternators standard regulator back 'on' after a rest period when its run down to a float voltage. its not proper charging and not good for the batteries. reference my other post, the sterling thing i was talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the alts regulator.

what part of what i've said is wrong then? (this will be interesting...)

gibbo is on the money here, true power = watts, 'apparent' power is VA. VA is what you talk about with 'reactive' loads. reactive loads are consumers that draw current out of phase with voltage. inductive loads are things that are mainly motor or transformer driven, i.e. things that contain wire wrapped around a core, also including fluorescent lights. capacitive loads things like... errr... over-corrected inductive loads?? resistive loads are neutral, things like your standard tungsten filament or halogen light bulb, or 1-2 bar electric fire where the load draws its current out of phase with the voltage, people talk about VA instead of W. things like generators and UPS are rated in VA at a certain power factor. the nearer to 1 the power factor is, the more 'real' the power is. computers and such loads are typically rated around 0.7 power factor. a UPS inverter wont actually be all that useful on a boat. A UPS is designed so that it does what it says on the tin, and is mainly meant for backing up a PC in the event of a power cut or 'brown out'. the load (i.e. a PC) is a constant known quantity. on a boat the loads vary massively. UPS's exactly as described earlier arent normally intended to run for more than 10, 20 or 30 mins, and are generously rated, so not surprising it overheated really... there are also 3 types of UPS - on-line, line interactive and off-line. on-line is your best bet if you want to play about with these things. off-line is basically a 'combi' or 'multi'. BIG ups's can be spec'd to serve several hours, supplying power to telephone exchanges, complete hospital wings and even a reasonably sized office building etc. batteries for these things are often on a scale that would fill one floor of your average 3-4 bedroom house.

^^^ in answer to this alan, before you deleted it, i just thought i'd pop in and try to share a different angle to what people on here usually see. you can be knowledgeable without having to dazzle people with number crunching and science that half the people on here probably dont understand. I can do all that too, but whats the point if peoples eyes are glazing over? i'm not trying to 'rubbish' people, although it may have come across like that. apologies to anyone offended. to gain a 'certain' level of knowledge takes years of training and hands on experience, and its important for people to know that while these forums are a useful source of information, what they gain on here shouldnt always be taken as 'the gospel'. theres always someone with more know-how and experience out there somewhere, and the answers to questions on here arent always going to be the right answers for everyone.

the gulper is about the only decent pump whale make from what ive seen. ...or a jabsco 50880-1000. this twists in two planes where gulper only twists in one. its a fraction cheaper than the gulper, and you'll find more places carry spares for jabsco.

YAWN what is all this about exactly?? Do I need an 'alternator controller'?? watch out, proper technically informed answer but in language people will understand approaching... all depends on how you use your boat, how good your charger is, how well its matched up to your battery type and capacity subject to any loads you're drawing while you're charging. if you plug into a landline and make sure your charger is actually switched on for at least a full day [thats 24 real hours for those who arent sure], once every 1-2 weeks, then probably not. Alternators, old or new, are CRAP battery chargers. they're simply current generators. The most important thing a battery charger has is voltage regulation. alternators dont have much of that on their own. what they do have is about 14.4 volts for what, 15 mins? 30 mins? maybe an hour? depends on the alts regulator. then what does it do? 13.6V-13.8V until you stop the engine, rest for a bit then start it again? what do 'automatic' and 'adaptive' chargers do? deliver high current for an hour or two as required and then go through a PROPERLY TIMED AND CONTROLLED charging regime to ensure the batteries get charged properly to 100% capacity. The core of the original question i guess really should have been "how can i charge my batteries properly from my alternator, are advercs/kestrels etc any good?" simply NO. any day of the week and twice on a sunday. rather than waffle on about batteries, and voltages like all these self confessed 'experts', lets stick to the question that was originally asked. Adverc, kestrel etc, sorry, not featuring on my list of "stuff you ought to fit". like Mr peacock said, basically they boil batteries. why? i really cant bet bothered to go into it, and does anyone actually care? boiling batteries is really what they do if you run your engine for much more than 4 hours at a time, or maybe not boil, but certainly gas them heavily and heat them up, evaporating away all your lovely electrolyte. absolutely do not use these if your batteries are sealed, that includes gel and agm. what about a generator with a charger?? great if you and your neighbours can tolerate the noise for 6 continuous hours minimum, because thats at least how long you'll need to run it for to get your batteries somewhere near properly charged, ideally 10-12 hours, and only if your charger is a good 'un. you cant change chemistry folks, so until someone comes up with a 'better' way of storing power other than in a battery, i guess we're all buggered, eh? 'travel power' or engine based AC generator? what do these cost now, maybe £1500-£2000 fitted? interesting bit... if you're relying on an alternator as your primary means of charging your domestic battery, worth thinking about a Sterling A-B. its a seriously heavy duty DC-DC converter with a proper controlled charging output which will actually charge your batteries in the way they're meant to be charged. no jiggering about with the alternators regulator wiring, just 2 wires in, 2 wires out, bingo, job done. if you spend a lot of time cruising and moor at a site with no power, a typical day cruising will give you enough power-generating time to make sure your batteries are properly charged. a bit more expensive than an adverc, but its the only thing i've seen that actually solves this probelm properly apart from a mastervolt alpha pro regulator coupled to a 'proper' marine duty alternator (high output at low rpm) Gary - how do you solve charging issues to maximise battery life when your customers cant plug in to a land line?? ive spent my entire working life dealing with boats, inland and sea-going, amongst other mobile, industrial and various other "power requiring" areas, obviously mostly DC and single phase AC electrics, but with other engineering disciplines thrown in for a laugh. from what ive read on here along with other threads, i cant really say i've seen any 'experts' at all yet. arrogant, arent i? LOL

hmmm, well actually if you wire the charger or distribution to one end of the bank, are we saying none of the batteries have any resistance, nor their terminals, nor the crimps on the cables or the cables themselves? at no-load, of course your trusty £15 voltmeter never lies. start chucking a few hundred amps about and warming things up a bit [which of course keeps the resistance of everything the same??] and doesnt it stand to reason that the one at the non-connected end is going to get the rough end of the stick? wiring a bank of batteries to chargers/loads as a Z is simply good practice. obviously in real life we're talking 10ths of a volt, maybe 100ths, but over a few yrs it makes a difference. As you say, in an ideal world connecting all the blocks together with solid links (ok, not really bus bars) is exactly what some battery suppliers do when they're rack mounted and used for BIG power back up systems in hospitals, airports etc. while im here, does anyone bother to check that all their terminals and connections are kept nice n tight regularly? they vibrate loose. Oh, and corrode. rubbish for what? not for starting a nissan micra, you'll see your 4 yrs if they're used for what they're intended/designed for, and of course as long as you're not an idiot. just shows you how great halfords are if they cant be bothered to check a receipt for proof of the purchase date. at the end of the day, they must make so much on alloys, stereos and sat navs they probably dont really care. I wonder if it says "IDEALLY SUITED FOR USE AS A DOMESTIC BATTERY ON A BOAT, PARALLELED TOGETHER IN AT LEAST 6 STRINGS" on them anywhere? you'd believe it then wouldnt you?? I wonder why they dont actually print that on them?? funnily enough, i bet the 17 yr old girl behind the till doing her nails and the spotty youth with his pimped up saxo outside who usually works in 'da bike section' who's helping out today because they're short staffed could both tell you exactly why they're not actually suitable. anyone remember the days when halfords were actually good and useful, and they had 'mechanics' working there who knew a bit about cars? god help us.