Roger Gunkel

Just coming in on this thread for the first time. Interesting hearing several of you talking about the ecofan. Having recently fitted a solid fuel stove in my wide beam, I too had the initial problem of getting the heat to the end of the boat. Our main lounge is at the bow end with the stove half way down and a corridor down the opposite side of the boat to the rear accommodation. My solution which has been remarkably effective, was to take a small CPU cooling fan from a dead computer and mount it on the ceiling at the lounge end of the corridor which seems to be a particularly warm area. These fans are ony about 40 cms diameter and 1 cm thick and made to run continuously. They also run on 12 volts at about 0.15amps, although I found it whined a bit as it runs at high speed. I decided to connect it to my system via an unused in-car 12 volt phone charger which steps the voltage down to 5 volts. This greatly reduces the fan speed which makes it virtually silent. The whole thing uses about 180 milliamps, so power consumption is not an issue, it is attached to the ceiling with a double sided sticky foam pad and has been a revelation in heat dispersion for us. We also have large single glazed windows throughout the boat, which are great for heating the boat from the sun, but a terrible heat loss at other times. they were a constant cause of thermic air movement with cold air dropping down to the floor of the boat from the windows. A quick visit to the local discount store came up with an £8 packet of window glazing cling film and double sided tape. A few hours with scissors tape and hair drier has given us virtually invisible double glazing and completely eliminated the cold air movement as well as removing the condensation problems on the frames and glass. At £8 total, it can all be ripped off in the spring and maybe I'll sort out a rigid system for next year. Roger and Claire

We have lived aboard a wide beam with a full diesel CH system for 18 months but after major problems I have now put in a solid fuel stove which has kept us very comfortable through the heart of the Winter. We don't use the CH system at all now just the water heating. As you will not be using the boat through the winter I would save the £2.5K and spend a few hundred on a stove. We have found the stove cheaper to run, easy to light and keep in, keeps the boat much drier and on our wide beam and heats the boat quicker from cold than the radiators did. It is also wonderful to sit round and it does chestnuts and boils a kettle better than a radiator! We bought our Evergreen stove for £250 plus £100 for a complete installation kit. We were initially doubtful about coal, ash dust etc, but don't find any of it a problem at all. Roger & Claire

Good word Bones - Tranquility! That is certainly something that we have found. In all of the places that I have lived throughout my life, there has always been one constant, to a greater or lesser degree - noise. By noise I mean that hum thats represents modern society, distant traffic, the sound of a train, the slamming of car doors in the early hours, people shouting a few streets away etc etc. Where we live now, all of that has gone and with it the stress. At night with the windows open, it is the wind in the trees, the faint ripple of the water and the occasional creaking of the ropes. The calls of various wild birds or the splash of a fish and without fail, all visitors pick up on that peace very quickly. Very occasionally with the wind from the west we can just make out the sound of a train and sometimes a jet aircraft will pass over on its way to an airbase a few miles away. These are only occasional and just serve to remind us how glad we are to be away from the 'Hum' Maybe our souls will crave the sound of our fellow man in a few years time, but hey! we can move our home into the centre of Cambridge in a couple of hours up the river, just to remind us of all that civilisation before we glide back to our little piece of paradise. Roger & Claire

I have been following this thread with interest and thought I would put my own views. I was divorced a few years ago, ending up with about £45k after losing my business and house. As I was well into my fifties, the option of starting with a new mortgage was not tenable mainly due to the short term mortgages that were all that were available to me because of my age, and the prospect of needing to raise an additional £100k to get a modest house and the impossible repayment costs. The first solution was to rent for the first time in my life. This we did for 18 months in a small Fenland town, but for a small flat it was costing £100 per week for the basic rent, plus normal utility and council tax bills, with the prospect of regular rent rises and no long term security of tenure. In addition, the money spent was dead money and not paying for anything that we would own. I have loved boats all my life and my partner Claire shares my interest. After much research and looking around, we purchased a new 57ft wide beam sailaway 18 months ago for £45k. For those that don’t know, sailaways can be bought in various stages of completion and in our case included everything except fixtures, fittings and furniture. It included insulation, veneered lining, electrics (12 & 240v) inverter, mains hook up point, engine, batteries, diesel heating system (4 rads & tank) exterior finished paintwork and delivery. Window sizes and positions together with bulkheads were to our design. This gave us 400 sq ft of floor space to fit out exactly as we wanted. We moved aboard onto bare floors immediately, using camping equipment and fitted out around us over 3 months. We wanted all the comforts of a normal home and have a domestic 6ft fridge freezer, full size washing machine, bath and shower, coal/log fire (recent) in addition to the central heating, domestic settee and armchairs, free standing dining table and chairs, B&Q small kitchen, even internet, hi-fi and playstation. In other words all we had in our flat and more. We fitted out everything for under £10k and now have a boat valued at between £85-90 K We took out a small loan for completing the fit out which will be paid off in 3 years time. We had a steady learning curve and major heating problems, but they are now all behind us. Our Moorings are residential on the River Cam 8 miles down river from Cambridge with total security. We are on a Marina owned river bank mooring with beautiful views along and across the river which costs us £1600 per year, a huge saving over the £4800 pa for the flat. Council tax is the minimum rate, no water rates, and our phones, electric and coal are similar to what we would expect to pay in a small house. If we choose to move permanently, we can take our home with us to a new location as well as days or weeks travelling for holiday breaks if we wish with no need to pack anything. The Fen waterways are quiet and comparatively lock free and we cannot imagine a more idyllic way to live. Its been a good investment, and WE OWN IT! Roger Gunkel

Hi to all those who followed my trials and tribulations with my Eberspacher heating system, those who offered help, advice and support and those who were just interested. I promised to report my findings in detail and to let you all know the solution offered by Eberspacher. THIS IS A LONG UPDATE, SO APOLOGIES!! As you will recall, the main problem manifested itself in the regular failing of the brand new Hydronics 10 which is connected to four radiators and a hot water tank and is fuelled from the boats diesel tank as per the manufacturers installation. The Boat is a 57ft widebeam Boston Sailaway additions plus, supplied by the New Boat Company. Myself and my partner live and work onboard, using the heating system all day every day, shutting it down at night from about midnight to 7am. This is partly to save costs but mainly the continuous ticking of the fuel pump, motor speeding up and slowing down and roar of the combustion chamber was breaking into our sleep. Basically the system operates during the winter for about 17 hours per day. The system was coking up with this sort of use after about 6-8 weeks resulting in total failure. The basic cause of this failure was due to the nature of the fuel, red diesel, being below the required cetane rating/quality required and recommended by Eberspacher to the installers. Naturally this was a completely unexpected state of affairs to myself and others, as red diesel is the only readily available fuel on the waterway system. This was reinforced by Eberspacher’s promotion of the unit as ‘Central heating for boats’, and their customers, the boat builders, plumbing the fuel line into the red diesel tank. The initial failures of the system were repaired by engineers from NBC at no cost to myself and discussions took place with myself and Eberspacher regarding fuel quality and availabilty. At times these were quite heated (Excuse the unintentional pun). After more failures and repairs by an Eberspacher appointed independent company, I was told by the engineers that the system would continue to fail if it stayed as it was. It did indeed fail after a further few weeks and Eberspecher proposed that suggestions made by their independent engineers should be put in place. Here they are:- PROBLEM & SOLUTION 1) The plumbing installation supplied by NBC was not connected in accordance with the diagrams supplied with the boat’s manual. The water was able to loop back to the boiler without fully heating the radiators before telling the heat sensors to reduce the flow. There was also no valve to regulate the flow of water to the calorifier, so once the tank was up to temperature, being nearest to the boiler the sensor would again reduce the boiler output. The result was that the boat was not getting the heat that the system should produce. This was not a problem in itself as the onboard temperature was ok, but the 10kw output potential of the boiler was not required making the burner run at a much lower output. On the higher cetane road or white diesel for which the system was designed, the lower output burn temperature was sufficient to burn off any carbon build up, but as red diesel produces lower temperatures, the unit was quickly building up heavy deposits at the frequent tickover speeds. 2) The engineers corrected the plumbing problems, then replaced the Hydronic 10 with a new Hydronic 5. The lower 5kw output requires the unit to run at a higher level all the time to supply the heat output necessary and therefore does not drop into the carbon producing tickover speed range. That is the perfectly logical theory and so far, after a couple of months of very cold weather and long running, there have been absolutely no signs of any further problems developing. I must say that my anger at the lack of early acceptance of my problems and points by Eberspacher has now been replaced by my respect that this large and well established company has acknowledged a problem in some areas of the marine industry. They have found a compromise solution that appears to work in my case and have carried out this work without any charge to myself in view of it being a problem from new. For this I am grateful to them and particularly to Steve Turner. HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT HEATING AND LIVING ABOARD NOW? Firstly I feel that although my problem has been with Eberspecher & NBC, what I have learned 16 months down the line is that the red diesel problem is fairly common in most makes of diesel heaters and not addressed by many boat builders. In boats with only occasional or weekend use, the hours to a carbon build up would probably bring the unit into annual service time, but permanent live aboard hours are a different matter. I am no longer convinced that this form of heating is an economical consideration. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? My installation of boiler, 4 radiators, tank and calorifier added about £2500 to the cost of the boat. By domestic house standards, this is a lot of money. Over the last 8 weeks, taking off the engine running hours, we have averaged a steady 7 litres of diesel per day for 17 hours per day running. I have looked back over the last 14 months of diesel use with the Hydronic 10 and the results have been identical. I would expect this as heat output and fuel consumption must be similar. These results show an average of just over 0.4 litres per hour, which at 50p per litre equates to 20p per hour. For me that means £24 per week for 4 radiators and hot water, but no heat at all overnight. For 24 hour running, I would be looking at £33.60 per week at current prices. If I include an annual service and parts, the costs increase to over £40 per week. From my communications with other live aboards, this would appear to be similar to their own findings with similar types of heating systems and useage. This seems to be very expensive compared to a small house and if we consider that we will probably all be paying for white diesel next year, these figures will double. WHAT AM I DOING NOW? A few weeks ago I purchased a brand new Evergreen coal and log stove, together with everything to fit it, flue, chimney, collar, fire cement etc. The whole lot cost me £380. I have never attempted to fit any sort of fire or stove before, so I took advice, read a bit, took the bull by the horns and have had it running for 3 weeks now. If I could roll the clock back, I would have saved myself over £2000 and had it right from the start. I runs for 24 hours a day, and burns 2.5 bags of Phurnacite a week (25Kg bags) Phurnacite is not the cheapest of coals but it is highly efficient. Each bag costs me £6.75 giving a weekly cost of less than £17 for 24 hour heating. This is almost exactly half the hourly cost of my diesel system. Ah! You say what about the hot water? Well we run the Eberspacher for a maximum of 2 hours, sometimes less, for water only. That’s usually 10 hours per week or £2. In addition the kettle can sit on the stove giving constant hot water for no extra cost at all, cutting gas use and saving part of the £2 for diesel. In our case the diesel heated water is used for our bath and washing machine. Our wide beam has an open side corridor and we have found that even in sub zero outside air, the warmth from the stove reaches our end bedroom, which we don’t like too warm.We could increas this flow if we wanted with an ecofan. Previously, leaving the diesel heat off over night, we were freezing in the morning, running with condensation and everything was cold to the touch for several hours after heat on. Even if we left it on all night we were plagued with condensation. Because of the airflow in and out of the boat via the stove, we now find condensation problems gone, a heat that we have never experienced before in our lounge and kitchen and an overall warmth throughout. Claire dries the washing on an airer by the stove without condensing on the windows which we had using the radiators. We also burn logs which we have a ready supply of, to cut the costs even further and you can’t possibly beat the glow and feel of a real fire, especially when you are roasting chestnuts on it! Best of all – NO NOISE!! Downsides? Raking it out and topping it up 3 times a day, storing coal and logs. Strangely, we actually enjoy looking after the fire and storage is not a problem for us on the wide beam, it goes on the roof. THAT’S IT! The full report! Don’t know if anyone read to the end, love to hear comments, thanks again to Eberspacher and NBC for sorting out the problems eventually. I now hopefully have a very expensive but reliable back up system! Happy heating, Roger & Claire

Hi to John/Fuel 2001 and all those who followed my Eberspecher saga. I have been off line for a while, so my apolgies I have no intention of returning the theme of the current thread back to the Eberspecher and I will add to the AGA debate. Firstly though, Since my last posting, NBC and Eberspecher were in contact and I have been asked if I would give their solution to my problem a fair chance over a few weeks of running, before detailing my thoughts. I am quite happy to do this, as the main reasons for my 'going public' with my problem, was to firstly get to the bottom of the trouble for my own comfort and secondly get the manufacturers and suppliers/fitters to take a hard and serious look at the proper sale and useage of the units in a waterways based environment to the benefit of all parties. It seems that I have succeeded in doing that. A serious look has been taken by Eberspecher, in my opinion, at the reasons for the failures in my and other similar cases, and a sensible explanation and likely solution has been put into place. It involves both installation and operation, and I will put a full appraisal and report on this website in a few weeks time to pass my findings and use on to all those who are interested. I will start a new topic to make it quite clear. Although it has taken a long time, I do feel that Eberspecher are doing their best now to sort this out, which has to be applauded for a large international company. NBC and others I understand will also be looking closely at future installations. Hopefully we can all move forward! So whats all this about AGAs, I have to add my ten pennyworth as I had one for twenty years. First it was solid fuel, then converted to oil and I have to say that if you haven't had one, then you aren't entitled to an opinion! Sorry but 'I know know a bloke who did' cuts no ice with me. AGAs are crap for central heating compared with modern systems, even AGA suggest you don't use their old boilers. But for cooking, there is nothing to beat them. I was a total sceptic until I bought a house with a 30 year old one already in. It doesn't add moisture to your cooking, it doesn't dry it out or flavour it, you never have to clean out the ovens, you can't catch things on fire with it. If you don't try to run your heating off it, it gives you permanent hot water, you can curl up and fall asleep in front of it and it adds a heart to your home. You have to spend time getting to know how to use it and if you do, you will never get rid of it. Everybody that I know that has ever used and lived with one, feels the same way. Fashion has brought them back into popularity, but I had mine well before that happened. If I ever live in another house I will make sure that the kitchen has an AGA. ANYWAY I LIKE EM!!!

Hi all, Thought you might like an update on this on going saga of mine. After the two Eberspacher appointed engineers cleaned up and resurrected my system on 14th October, I received a call from my 'New Boat Company' representative on Wednesday 19th for my update on the situation. I reported back all the details as recounted in my posting on this forum. I was told that there would be more discussions with Eberspacher and that was about it. I have waited with interest up to the present date, 28th, for any further developments. Not only has there been nothing more from NBC or Eberspacher, approximately 10 minutes before starting this posting and my inspiration for updating you, was the fact that the system has shut itself down once more, after deciding to turn off its fuel pump and complete a shutdown sequence of its own accord. As this is precisely how all the other failures began to show themselves, I feel my blood beginning to boil and dark thoughts of trading standards and some very interesting conversations with them flooding through my head. The last words of the two engineers have come back to haunt me and it seems as though polite and reasonable discussion is a complete waste of time. I still retain a faint glimmer of hope in the business ethics of these two large companies, but I am still to be convinced. I hope that past present and future customers of both don't find themselves heading down this same highway and hope at some time to publicly report that this has all been satisfactorily resolved. Roger.

Hi Bottle, I think that if if you read all the postings you will see that we have moved way beyond your point. But just to answer your point, if your 'Super Plus fuelled car' was supplied with its fuel pump connected to the oil supply, you would be right to complain when it failed. I now know Eberspecher recommend white diesel, but have you ever tried taking a 22 ton 57ft boat down the high street to a white diesel pump? So the builder says "sorry mate! they only told us that 3 years ago, pity they didn't tell the buyers before we took your money a year ago. We could have told you and put in a seperate kerosene tank, but that would have reduced our profit margin. Anyway there are plenty of others out there who don't know so why would we tell them?" Thanks eveyone, I'll keep you informed of developments, hopefully it will be resolved to the benefit of everyone without resorting to Trading Standards. Roger

There seem to be a lot of emotive replies and opininions expressed about this whole subject, coupled with heresay, I know a bloke......., river folklore, half understood knowledge etc. Colin is going along the same route as me, facts which are backed up by technical evidence, scientific knowledge and manufacturers recommendations. I am pursueing my grievances because I want to have my expensive heating system running according to the basic requirements of a central heating system as sold by the boat builder and advertised by the system manufacturer. I need hard technical facts to substantiate my claims, which I now have, and I want anybody else who is in a similar position to myself, or thinking of adding live aboard central heating, to be able to have these problems addressed. I don't wish to run a crusade against any company, but I do want those selling and fitting these systems to understand the problems of the end user, the environment in which they are being used and for all concerned to talk to each other and remove the problems. At the end of the day as a buyer, my money and yours is keeping these companies in business and we should expect the products that we purchase to be fitted correctly and be suitable for the use for which they have been sold and advertised. Roger

Thanks for that Carrie, Not a conspiracy then, I can safely lock up the dogs as the men in black won't be coming round. Roger

Hi all My computer was totally unable to access this site yesterday, but no problems on any other. Did everybody else have the same problem or is this the 'EBERGATE' conspiracy theory. Anyway here I am again with so much new info I am not sure where to start. I had an in depth conversation with my boat builder's representative about my failled heater, suitability of fuels, ongoing unreliability and all the things I have previosly mentioned here. He contacted Eberspecher and then rang me back and asked me to speak to his Eberspacher contact direct. This I did. After a slightly disturbing 45 minute phone call to 'a person at Eberspacher' about fuel, impurities, selling to a market where the available fuel is less than ideal etc, it seems that we should all consider ourselve lucky that we don't have to pay tax on our diesel unlike most other poor people. I was also told that this would change after the red diesel goes and we would all have to use white. WRONG! I pointed out quite angrily that as a person who lives and works onboard, that in the depths of winter I use around 50 litres of red diesel per week for 16 hours a day running. At £1 per litre for white diesel, no one in their right mind would consider using an Eberspacher or equivalent spec unit, and their marine sales would simply collapse unless they publicly and openly advised their customers of a viable economical alternative, probably parafin/kerosene. I relayed that back to my boatbuilder who told me he would speak to them again and ring me back. Hearing nothing for 24 hours, I rang them again, only to be told that the person I was dealing with had gone on holiday for a week and nobody else new anything about it. I went through it again with a new person who was very sympathetic. I also mentioned trading standards, who I have also had a fascinating in depth conversation with. The net result was that Eberspachers UK sales person Steve turner, rang me and we had a genuine and sympathetic discussion over the problem. He informed me that a respected independent company would visit the next morning to inspect the installation, and get my heater working straight away at Eberspecher's expense. The company from Northampton, two guys called Gary and Dave, arrived at 7.00am this morning and left at 12.30. I was very impressed with their Knowledge, approach and efficiency. Also completed my knowledge and conclusions as to direction…… Here it is The Eberspecher Hydronic D10 will run fine on the specified fuel, basically white diesel, with a service interval minimum of 12 months. The unit is designed to run up to maximum speed until the water is to the required temperature, then slow down to maintain that temperature. At the slowest fuel pump rate of about 1 pump per second the unit will tick over. As water temp falls the sensor speeds up fuel delivery and burn as required. However red diesel has a lower cetane index which means it burns less efficiently. This is fine at higher burn and fuel delivery rates, but on tickover it fails to burn thoroughly producing much larger carbon deposits, clogging the flame tube and causing problems with other components, then failure over a short period of time. The first suggested remedy was to put in a greater area of heat dispersion in the water system so that the unit never goes into the tickover or slow running mode. A heated towel rail was suggested on the same circuit as the calorifier. I’m sure this would work as the guys seem to have done it before successfully. Another suggestion was a D5 as this would have to work harder and would be less likely to go into slow running. The thing that bothers me is that this sort of remedy, is hiding the fact that the system is being made to run at a constantly higher output simply because it is not suitable for the fuel available. The second and/or parallel suggestion was that the builder should install a second tank for kerosene as the fuel is cleaner and will give the heater no problems with its designed running. As the builder was aware of the fuel problem at the time of building, this would seem to fall directly into their laps. As mentioned by Colin and someone else earlier, Eberspacher are recommending the use of the FUELSET additive which can help reduce the fuel water content and help to improve combustion. This does appear to be of limited help but will probably help to delay the build up of carbon. As a final comment on this very long posting, the guys that came over today, having cleaned up the system and fired it up, said ‘IF THIS SYSTEM IS LEFT AS IT IS, IT WILL FAIL AGAIN SOON. Roger

Gary, Thanks for that reply, evidence is what I have been lacking. The only remaining query that I have is through my lack of knowledge on fuels. I have always thought that heating oil and kerosene were the same thing. If that assumption is wrong, then what is the cetane index of kerosene as heating oil is only 42 from Colin's earlier posting. Thanks also to everybody who offered their opinions and to Colin and Richard for their PMs (I'm getting to grips with the site after 24 hours and I think it is brilliant!) Roger

Hi Richard, Just looked at the link from last year and I find it quite amazing that people like me are still out there parting with their hard earned, a year after that sort of correspondence. I fully understand the 'here we go again' reaction of many of those of you who have been a party to these forums, but there a large number of people like myself who have joined since with no knowledge of what went before. I feel fully justified in bringing what I see as a BIG!! problem to the attention of all us new innocents and hope that we can continue to learn from yourselves and ask for your indulgence. Best regards, Roger

Thankyou Colin, That sums up my point exactly! What I would like to know is who was officially told of this spec change by Eberspacher, when and how, or was it a whisper made known to the trade but not backed up in writing. Gary and Alastair seem pretty definite, where did it come from? Thanks Richard for the link, I will follow it with interest. Best regards Roger

The reason that people like me are still trying to run their systems on marine diesel is because we have never been told otherwise!. The boat and system was bought with the fuel pipe coming from the diesel tank, can it be any more explicit than that!. I have spoken at length with Eberspacher and at no time was any reccommendation made to run on Kerosene or with any fuel additive. Alastair and Richard comment that Eberspacher have 'officially stated that there heaters will only run (long term) on kerosene'. Where have they stated this that I, as a prospective purchaser last year would have seen? Why have the sellers of the boat not been told? Why have Eberspacher not told me as a customer, particularly as their own engineers came to my boat to get it running? As Gary says 'Eberspacher have a customer relations and marketing problem to the public'. This has had a serious effect on our day to day living, and I would suggest that anyone contemplating `using a new Eberspacher system for their only heating source, should get very clear information on:- 1) The type of fuel that will enable it to keep running 2) Availability of that fuel and ability to get it to the boat 3) Specific guidelines as to service intervals in relation to hours used 4) Cost of services 5) Availability of backup, if any, in the event of a breakdown None of the above were available or offered to me at the time or subsequently and as a result of that fact I would stand by my warning about Eberspacher systems, until such time as they face up to their responsibilities openly to their customers. Roger

Hi Rayman, Perhaps you can convince Eberspacher of that, as they constantly seem to be telling me otherwise. I always thought they were the same, perhaps the heaters choke on the dye; perhaps its yet more BS from Eberspecher. Roger

Myself and my partner have been living aboard for 13 months and run a small video production business, training, promotion, schools, weddings etc. Although we have a residential mooring with mains and telephone, we frequently do our computer based editing work whilst moving around and running on the inverter. We can also access the internet whilst away, by using our mobile. BT calls are accessed from call minder by our mobile Hope this helps Roger

Thanks for that Steve. Yes you are quite right, the Eberspachers were originally and still are used as lorry heaters. They were designed to run on white diesel as I know know having spent my money! However they are quite clearly marketed as boat heating systems, where the only readily available fuel is red diesel. I think it is morally and ethically wrong to market into an area where unsuspecting buyers are going to to find problems, then bleat about unsuitable fuels. Gary mentioned that he runs his on Kerosene, but Eberspacher were not prepared to guarantee to me that the hydronics 10 would run efficiently on that fuel. I do also have a small motorsailer which is fitted with an old Eberspecher and has no problems whatsoever, so my anti Eberspecher feelings are directed at the new model and the lack of supprt or interest from them. Roger

Hi Carrie, Thanks for the welcome, I'm really not normally Mr Angry, and I'm sure my future posts will be much more positive! Roger

Hi All, I have just found this site and forum, immediately registrered (5 minutes ago) and have decided to jump in with both feet. I Live aboard a 57ft Wide beam on the River Cam. I purchased the boat new in September 2004 as a sailaway, fitted with an Eberspacher Hydronics 10 driven diesel heating system. The unit has been a nightmare for the last 12 months, with recurring problems and on my own experiences I would not be able to reccommend it as a sensible buy for anyone contemplating domestic use on a continuous basis. The entire installation including 4 radiators, hot water tank and calorifier, control unit etc all up and running cost in the region of £2500. within 2 months of first use, the system packed up and wouldn't fire up. The service agent on first contact immediately suggested a possible problem with the quality of the fuel. We purchase all of our diesel from the most reputable marina in the area as do most people near us. The fuel was sampled and found to be fine. The engineer cleaned out some carbon build up and fired up the unit. It expired once more 3 days before Christmas and the boat suppliers, service company and Eberspacher were all unable to offer any assistance until January 7th. We had no heating of any sort apart from the cooker, over that whole time! Subsequently most parts of the heater unit were replaced, including the ICU, an enormous ammount of carbon was removed and the whole thing was fired up successfully again. It failed again a few days later and Eberspecher themselves sent a specialist who finally got it going again. We noted the reccommendation to have the system fully serviced within 12 months. The boat suppliers and Eberspecher eventually agreed to pay the costs under guarantee. We have continued to use the fuel from the same marina, and followed the minimum burn time guidelines, using the system for water heating only through the Summer a couple of hours a day, with the occasional use of rads on really cool evenings. Over the last few days the system has been very reluctant to start, producing massive clouds of white, blue, black and brown smoke during the start up, frequently not starting at all. Prolonged telephone conversations with suppliers agents and Eberspecher have as yet produced no results. Eberspecher are implying fuel quality problems (surprise). They have also told me that liveaboards should have the system serviced much more frequently, but will give no indication at all of how frequently. They are also saying quite aggressively that if the combustion chamber is carbon full again, then the fuel is at fault, which is not their responsibility. They are also saying that no matter how good the fuel source is, there could be water in our tank, diesel bug in the tank, electrical faults on other boats transferred through the water affectig the CPU etc etc. This is all without seeing the unit and inspite of our checks on all of the above. The servicing cost for my unit is £109 plus labour and travelling which totals £250-£300. As this problem seems to occur after 3-4 months of running, that would cost arround £900 P.A. or sling the entire unit every year and buy a new one for not much more! I find it absolutely incredible that Eberspecher can supply this unit for central heating, which cannot run on the fuel available in the area for which it is marketed. Our boat supplier, the biggest in the UK, is currently testing other systems because of the on going problems and lack of interest from Eberspacher. Meanwhile I am fitting a solid fuel stove next week because my £2500 central heating system is not capable of doing the job for which it was sold. My apologies for using my first posting for a rant, my views are entirely personal, but I am MR ANGRY!!!!! Good luck in your search for a liveaboard heating system............Stick with coal and logs! Roger Gunkel