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Hi all, Freshly installed a Webasto which actually came with a start/stop push button. Trying to connect a Heatmiser thermostat but the heater doesn’t start. my wiring is as follow: brown is - return permanent live (thermostat) black A2 is - return switch to heater (relay) red A1 is + feed switch to heater (relay) green is + permanent live (thermostat) the thermostat works, lit and programmable, all controls are working but not switching on or off the heater. It seems that the connectors A1/A2 are simply not switching on/off when shorting the red to black, the heater starts immediately. any ideas about this issue? May the relay be faulty? Or I connect something the wrong way around? Thanks in advance 👍🏻

My heating system is a Webasto Thermo Top C, it runs x2 radiators and x1 towel rack (rad)... System uses a 50/50 mixture of antifreeze & water to run through the rads. The system is connected also to a colirifier to heat water... Currently my webasto was reconditioned as the inner burner was clogged with burnt fuel. Im guessing when the boat was taken from the water it drew dirty fuel from the bottom of the tank. Webasto has been reinstalled by myself in the engine bay, all pipe work is 22mm with 15mm T offs to rads so within recommended frame work. Webasto turns over using when using control unit an fires up, inline fuel pump seems to work... Could feel coolant/water circulation through pipe work to unit. Webasto goes through start up process makes all usual noises but eventually sounds strange. Slight smoke from unit near exhaust and unit gets hot as hell. I dont trust leaving it on in this state. Even bled rads and air seems to be released. Right now i am confused with the whole set up and dont undertand why it is not working. I thought could be electrical related issue but usually a webasto would not even fire up if it doesn't receive its 12v's so again this is why I'm stumped... Any ideas or know anyone good with these systems? Getting to winter soon and would be nice to have the rads working

Liveaboard on a 60ft widebeam for a year and looking for some advice re heating. Managed to scrape through last winter and hoping to get my heating sorted out for the upcoming! Our boat (2007) came with a Webasto thermtop-c water diesel heater, with 4 radiators inside the boat. in spring this year the heater stopped working (Would start up and then stop within about 15 seconds). Anyone experienced with these, is it worth getting the Webasto serviced and going again for heating and water in the winter, or should we look to replace it with a new diesel heater, e.g. the Planar models other threads have discussed? Any advice would be much appreciated. We don't have a stove currently, would that be a better use of money for a heating system? Thanks

Hi all 👋, first post on here but probably one of many, I'm currently looking into the heating system I am going to install on my widebeam i was hoping you could take a look and tell me what you think and if it all looks ok. (Heating sorce: Solid fuel fire and diesel water heater Heating up - radiators, under floor heating and hot water) I am thinking of installing the bubble b1c1 corner stove with back boiler, also what are peoples thoughts on the Prity AM 12 ( https://fireplacesforhome.com/Wood-Burning-Stove-Corner-Model-Fireplace-Log-Burner-Solid-Fuel-Prity-AM-12kw ) multifuel stove? And also a webasto diesel water heater. All my heating appliances are going to run to the NRG zone 5 manifold wich does allow thermosyphon , I plan to have 4x radiators, underfloor heating and calorifier attached. The diagram is missing the PRV and the pipes from the back boiler to the heating manifold will be in 28mm. My biggest worry is the thermosyphon safety as it is going to run to the heating manifold so i dont have any heat leak. Any input would be appreciated. Kind regards Brad I've linked the NRG zone let me know what you think to using this as I can't see any post speaking about this or any manifold. https://www.nrgawareness.com/product/nrg-zone-4-5-6-32-32-28/

Hello Just when i thought I'd got our Eberspacher D4 Hydronic sorted out ... something new, which I have not seen discussed elsewhere (apart from maybe in a section of the Murkin Bros' site under 'Weird Faults'. Ebbie had failed a few times so took it to bits and found it was in a bit of a state - badly coked, gaskets falling to bits, glow-pin screen coked and blocked. Sorted all of these out. Still not happy on restart and showing a code 052 so replaced (rather than just cleaning) the fuel intake filter and made sure no gunk in the fuel intake pipework. Now it starts up, runs for about 25-30 minutes, though not sounding 100% happy - labouring a bit. Then smokes, makes a booming/honking sound which causes a bit of vibration, and cuts out. Error code 030 which is: "Fan impeller of combustion air fan motor blocked (frozen, dirty, stiff, lead chafes at end of shaft …)". There doesn't appear to be any blockage or damage to the fan, and I am puzzled as to why it runs for the length of time it does before conking out. Any experience of this or similar problems? I've learned that error codes tend to report only the last in a sequence of things going wrong (!) so trying to understand what root cause of this might be ... wiring/connections to the impeller motor? Any thoughts? Before I go and buy a whole new impeller unit which I might not actually need? Patrick

Our Paloma MkV is playing up. The pilot light has a tendency to go out and when I tried to relight it last week there was a bloody big fireball! I've since had Buster over to have a look at it and he's got it working again. He advised that we replace it with a sealed unit, as we have a newborn on the boat. Also he said that it's not really suitable for our situation as we have a bath and the Mrs likes to indulge every so often. Apparently the Paloma isn't designed to heat a bath's worth of water, having a recommended run-time of about 5 mins? Can anyone advise on a good replacement? Obviously needs to be about the same size so that it fits in the same nook in the bathroom. OK, not sure why the image got rotated. Turn it clockwise in your mind.....

Hello! Having found some very useful anwers on here previously, I was wondering if someone might help us with a problem we've got concerning the engine. To turn the engine on, we turn the key 90degrees clockwise and wait while it beeps for about 10 seconds. This is supposed to heat the engine. Then we can turn the key down once and this will turn on the engine. Since yesterday, after having turned the key down, the engine turns on and makes a happy noise, but the beeping doesn't stop, even after a few minutes of the engine being lit. Looking at the electronics control panel,one warning light is on: "Batteries D". (We were also told that the batteries should always remain above 12.8V. The inverter is off, however, they are now at 11.7V.) Is there anything we could try to do to fix this problem? Can we run the engine anyway (we were told that the engine should be run every day in winter)? Any help or indications on this topic would be much appreciated! Many thanks

Hello, I hope you can help. I have a single coil calorifier heated from the engine. I also have radiators heated by an eberspacher. They are on separate systems. Is it possible to connect the two systems so that the calorifier can be heated from both sources? As the eberspacher is mounted higher than the engine, would there be a problem with water from the radiators circuit causing the engine cooling circuit to overfow? Thanks!

Hi all, my stove looks like this at the moment: http://imgur.com/a/oZk6q The flue needs to be replaced, and it also needs a new bit to connect the flue with the stove. What is that called? A flue collar? I'm talking about the thing in the photo that's split in two halves. Does anyone know if and where I could source this online? Are they all different for different stove brands? Thanks a lot for any hints!

I'm considering installing diesel heating on my 57ft boat. Not yet made the decision on whether to go Eber or Webasto. My question concerns the best method of mounting the parts in the engine compartment. Searching the web I've seen the various parts mounted around the compartment, or grouped together on what looks like a plate or painted board. All on a board looks neater to me such as in the picture I've attached. Is it normal practice to get nuts welded on to secure the parts, clip hoses and so on, or is there a better way? I could drill and tap into the bulkhead, or am I then opening myself up to lots of noise being transmitted into the cabin? I've picked up on the 22mm pipe for the feed and return lines to the rads - Is it acceptable to go through the bulkhead at 15mm then increase afterwards? The picture seems to show 15mm polypipe coming off the Webasto. I believe I need to get the install commissioned properly once I've done the install to check the burn etc. Can anyone recommend someone in the Loughborough / River Soar area? Thanks a lot

Hi, new to the site I am looking to remove gas heating system and replace with diesel boiler, I need advice and someone local to Crick to fit. David NB Salford Lass

Boaters using damp wood and logs in their stoves could be risking a triple whammy including increased costs, stove damage and carbon monoxide poisoning says the Boat Safety Scheme. It is crucial that wood fuel is kept in a dry, well-ventilated area. If not, the damp fuel will cause the stove to run at a lower temperature as the heat of the fire will be producing steam and so the stove needs much more fuel to keep the boat warm. Even worse, the steam dissolves-out flammable, acidic tars which will cling to and block up, as well as inevitably damage, the stove and its chimney. Damaged stove installations are more likely to leak combustion gases into the cabin space, and because of incomplete combustion as the fuel is damp, those gases are more likely to contain carbon monoxide (CO) – giving the vicious cycle that could see a highly toxic atmosphere in the boat. Stove flues lined with tar could also lead to a chimney fire... ...read more at http://bit.ly/woodfuelwisdom Hope it helps forumites to avoid being hit by unnecessary costs, carbon monoxide or fire. Regards Rob

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231401856821 Has anybody used something like one of these neat radiators, they will take 8mm microbore fittings. I wanted to link them into the engine's cooling system and I'm concerned that these radiators may not take the pressure.

Hi all i thinking of fitting secondary glazing using clear acrylic sheet and magnetic tape. Has anyone done this and if so how effective has it been. My boat has 18 windows and umpteen vent on the roof. i am looking at way of keeping the boat warmer. I have a morso squirrel with a eco fan but this only tends to heat one end of the boat. we also have a back boiler but this only heats the radiators if the fire is absolutely blazing. we are just getting the hang of keeping the fire going all night but it is still really cold in the mornings and I feel having so many cold pain of glass and draft has a lot to do with this problem.

Hi All, 2 of the radiators on our boat have a leak in the bottom weld so I want to replace them, and while I'm at it I may aswell replace all 4 since they are all about 15 years old now. Currently they are all 500mm high single (K1) radiators but I am thinking of replacing with 600mm high ones, and slightly longer to account for the odd imperial lengths they are at present. The boiler is an Eberspacher D5W and the total output for the 4 radiators would be 3.5kW so would the boiler be able to cope with this? With the old radiators (total 2.7kW) it seemed to cycle on and off every few minutes so perhaps the boiler was overpowered? Also, I assume that as long as the header/expansion tank is higher than the top of the radiators it doesn't matter that the Eberspacher will be roughly in line with the top? Many thanks David

Good evening everybody. This is my first post here after joining so forgive me if my questions are a bit basic (or thick). I am serious about moving on to the water to live. It is something I have been wanting to do for a long time as bricks and mortar are not really for me. However I am a complete novice when it comes to the world of canal boats. I have been on them and even stayed on one before but I have never been involved in owning one or knowing anyone who has. And so before I buy a boat which I have seen I have a few basic questions relating to making a leisure boat suitable for living aboard, and please forgive me if these questions have been answered a thousand times before. And so in no particular order, if anyone could help me with these questions to start: Survey: Not knowing much about boats I assume it would be sensible of me to have the boat surveyed first, can anybody give me a rough idea of costs involved? (I was chatting to another boat owner when I went to view it and he had worked on the boat and said it was in really good order mechanically,had low hours on the engine, had recently been blacked, and had a long safety certificate etc... Plus he said it was the same owners for 14 years and they looked after it really well and this is reflected by the overall decent condition the boat was in when i viewed it) Electrics: The boat currently has a 12V system running the lights and a 12V fridge. As I have a small number of appliances which would require traditional mains sockets what would be the most cost effective solution to providing power for these? Batteries: The boat has been up for sale for quite a long time (over 9 months i think) and the owner only comes out every now and again to turn over the engine and occasionally take her out. Is there a simple way to check the state of the batteries or would I need to rely on a full survey? Hot Water: The hot water is currently supplied by this method: 'engine cooling water circuit is fitted to a vertical calorifier' - As i understand it I would need to run the engine every day for a couple of hours or so to provide hot water. What is the best/most cost effective alternative to this system so that I could have hot water without running the engine? Heating: The boat currently has a solid fuel stove which is connected to two radiators for heating. Is this the most effective way of heating the boat or are there better alternatives? These are the most basic questions I have at the moment and I would really appreciate any advice you all can give (after browsing the forum for a while I know that have more money is probably the most valuable advice). Finally, my plan is to be as independent as possible which means not using a residential mooring and so having limited access to on-shore power so any advice on starting up, converting a leisure boat to a live aboard or any other general advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all your help Dave

Our boat sits in a marina for most of the winter, however we visit and use it whenever we can even if its cold. Fully draining down all the pipes etc is a time consuming affair but needed to protect against freezing (I am not keen on adding antifreeze to the water supply even if it is supposed to be safe). Even with draining down there is some risk of water being left in pipes and freezing. Consequently we use an oil filled heater on a frost thermostat to maintain some background heating but I am not convinced that this is effective as the items I am trying to protect (calorifier, pipework, pumps etc) are generally behind woodwork and unlikely to feel much benefit from heating the main cabin spaces. I do not want to take the other option of draining at the beginning of the winter and then not using the boat until the warmer weather arrives so am looking to obtain adequate protection whilst minimising the burden at each visit. I am thus considering trace heating of the self regulating tape type. This would be installed in the pipe runs, around the calorifer and the pumps, thus ensuring some direct protection. Such a system would have thermostats to switch on at a few degrees above freezing. As the heating is localised and controlled I judge that less electricity will be used which is another benefit. Clearly I would drain the bulk of the water from the system, leave taps open etc etc, but would spend less time trying to get the last of the water out. Has anyone considered or tried this, if so I would welcome advice. Thanks

Hi, Please can anyone help! We recently purchased a 70ft narrowboat (2007) with a Barrus Shire 45 engine. We have 4 ways in which we should get hot water from the boat which are listed as follows: 1. From the engine when running. 2. Eberspacher diesel system. 3. Log Burner and back boiler. 4. Immersion Heater Problem 1 We are new to boating and have only just bought the boat which was built in 2007. The engine is a Barrus Shire 45 and the coolant system is plumbed to a twin calorifier at the centre of the boat. Circulation is aided by a pump in the engine bay. When the engine is running, the hot water in the calorifier does not get hot. The expansion tank in the engine bay is also staying cool. Problem 2 The Eberspacher and Log burner are linked on one header tank separate to the engine header tank. When the eberspacher is running we get hot radiators ( 4 in total) but no hot water. The header tank is located in a wardrobe at the back of the boat which gets hot but with this system does not boil over. Problem 3 If we light the log burner a pump which is located at the back of the burner starts pumping that is controlled by a heat temp switch I think its called which senses the pipe getting hot and sends a signal for the pump to work and a light illuminates to show this is working. However the header tank which is shared with the eberspacher system does not get hot and pressure builds forcing the liquid out the small outlet pipe of the top of the tank. We get no hot radiators or no hot water. The pump starts to make a loud noise and we have had to put out the fire. We purchased the boat from a Marina who was acting as a brokerage for the vendor. We also paid over £800.00 for a full survey and this was not discovered. The Marina have just charged us £640.00 to relocate the old header tank from its location in the well deck to the wardrobe in the back of the boat as they said it was too low and have also replaced a pressure release valve and refilled with antifreeze and bled the system. This has failed to resolve the problem and the marina are now wanting over £2000 to re-pipe the whole boat! Summary We can only get hot water from the immersion heater. Eberspacher heats radiators but again no hot water - expansion tank gets hot but doesn't overflow Log burner does not heat water or radiators and header tank stays cold and the coolant is forced from top of bottle Engine doe not heat water and header tank bottle stays cold - Marina have replaced a relay on the engine pump but this has failed to resolve the problem Urgent Concern I need to move the boat this weekend to its new mooring (7 hrs cruising) and from the reading I have been doing I am wondering if it is possible that it is one of the engine thermostats that has failed. Ours has 2 thermostats, one at 71 degrees and a second at 88 - IF it is a thermostat and i move the boat - is there a chance that the engine will overheat and seize??? How can i eliminate this being a problem before I move the boat or is it worth replacing them to be sure and safe? Any help greatly appreciated - boat must move on Friday! We have had some helpful suggestions from Tony Brooks with regards to the first part of the email but the urgent concern bit only came to mind last night and made me worry a bit - Thanks in advance Joanne

Just a quick enquiry folks, anyone using a kabola b8 pressure fed boiler? I would appreciate there experiences of this unit kind regards Martin....

I'm thinking of getting a heater (electric oil filled) but what size would be recommended. I don't want the biggest, I want the smallest I can get away with, maybe around 750watts Its not to heat the boat but just as frost protection I have a 57ft narrowboat, all steel with double glazed windows. most of the pipework is boxed in by cupboards or other fittings so not sure how effective a heater would even be. Water store is in the bow. I don't want to drain down as I am on the boat at least 3 days a week Any comments?

Hello forgive me if this is mentioned elsewhere but I could not find it if it is. Currently my hot water comes from the engine via a calorifier it's a twin coil so I plan to link up to the heating system when I fit a stove with a back boiler in the spring as all plumbing rads and expantion tank are already in place. I was originally going to put a solar water heater in line as a friend made his own and found it very successfull but it would have ment disconnecting either the engine feed or the stove feed or having an elaborate system of valves and stopcocks so that I was not heating the world via the solar collector on the roof. So plan b as I've recently upgraded my solar panels I have been left with three 190 watt 36 volt panels that are sitting redundent one that has broken glass due to a poor tree felling exorcise. My plan is to put two of these panels in series 70 volt total and connect them to a suitable heating element for the calorifier so sunny days will result in water heating which is what needed for the summer as stove will not be running. I could just link up the element to my current solar controllers load function so when the batteries are charged the eccess would go in to water heating but I wanted to keep the systems separate in case something went wrong and discharged my bank. That why I've decided to use two of the currently redundant panels to keep the systems seperate. Now my question is (sorry if this has been long winded) what's the best way to go about it do I use a second controller and it's load function or the more simpler way just connect panels direct to the heating element with a inline stat to cut power when water temp is achieved in my head the panels direct with a stat seems the cheapest and simplest way to go about it. The thing I'm lacking is the know how so if anyone is currently using this system or can throw any ideas my way as how to wire this up it would be awsome. Cheers gary

Spent the weekend on the boat. As its unoccupied the rest of the week it was a little chilly so heating was bunged on. We have recently bought this boat (second hand), so do not have much experience of all the fixtures and fittings and we keep getting little surprises. The heating ran OK Friday Evening. Saturday evening, the heating was back running (hard to miss, the Hurricane is somewhat loud) but after about 30 mins the radiators were just luke warm and similar on the calorifier. No error codes on the control panel. Continuous running of the Hurricane. Still not much output. Flame bright and yellow when looking through the inspection window, though not uniform and looking "spluttery". It was dark at the time or I would have spotted the next bit earlier.... Outside with a torch and look at the exhaust. Considerable smoke and signs of unburnt fuel in the exhaust. D'Oh! So shut it down, and time to investigate. Not had this apart before. Find the 1000 hour service info on the web which was the best information I could find at the time.... The Hurricane is a fairly standard design air blown siphon nozzle diesel burner, so the nozzle seemed a likely problem. Compressor and fan all running, Air inlet hose not blocked, exhaust appeared clear of any blockage. Time to dismantle...... Nozzle out (Delavan 30609-2). Stripped nozzle and found small piece of what appeared to be brown rubber, about 2mm across, but nothing else, all very clean. Air hose to the nozzle checked and clear, compressor inlet filter looked brand new, fuel filter in the nozzle holder appeared clean. The hours counter on the heater has just got to 80, so very little use since new (2006). Rebuild it all and try again, though not very hopeful. Same result. Sunday morning. Still think its a nozzle/spray related issue, so take out the compressor. Standard diaphragm affair so take off the head. Fail to find any information on the web (its a "Thomas" compressor from the US). Obviously has an inlet valve, visible as a brown rubber mushroom head, but no sign of the discharge valve apart from some rubber sticking to the edges of the hole where it should be. The compressor head is a plastic affair and appears to be of two parts glued or molded together, with the head of the discharge valve inaccessible inside, so no chance of fixing it easily. Luckily the boat is at Calcutts who are Hurricane dealers. With no great expectation of success I head to the marina shop, discuss the issue and:- Yes these compressors are known to fail, especially early ones (like ours) No they did not have a direct spare in stock (Hurricane no longer supply them due to reliability issues) Yes there is a replacement, may have one in stock but £300++ needing various parts to make it fit. By now its lunchtime and I agree to come back after lunch when they will have had time to find the various parts. When I get back I find better news, they have a later version compressor head with stainless steel reed valves for a much better price of £40. Brilliant service from Calcutts! Back to the boat, rebuild compressor, fire it up and Yippee it all works ok. Thanks Calcutts, saved the day and my wallet. Chris

Hello there, Sorry for starting a probably well thrashed-out and potentially very stupid post, but after reading this forum and googling in general for an embarrassingly long time without gaining an understanding of what will do the trick, I'm still scratching my head. I'm doing up a 45footer and I'm after a system that will provide hot water for bath/shower, taps, a couple of little radiators for chilly mornings. I've got a little multifuel stove for heating on really cold days, and I have a morco d61 which I haven't fitted yet because I've realised I won't be able to run any radiators off it (useless, I know). I'm hoping to get a combi boiler of some sort, but the only ones mentioned on here are Alde, which appear to be in the over-a-grand cost region, which is a bit of an issue....but could be managed with a bit of saving. Would any other kind of combi boiler do, would I need anything else with it, or would a tank > pump > boiler > taps/radiators setup be functional? I've read some of the really useful guides on boat heating and water systems and I'm really impressed, I know a lot more than I did but I'm still wondering if there's a reason why you can't just buy an lpg boiler like this: http://www.mrcentralheating.co.uk/Heatline-CaprizPlus-24KW-Combi-Boiler-and-Fernox-Installers-Pack?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6pGfBRD09M-TmYTBzqIBEiQAcRzH5xtPIk5-EU3__2QYKdILCB5vKBf-3YkP9BYH3YKQ08kaApF78P8HAQ& Many thanks for your help all, and sorry again for starting a new topic on this. Lucy ==

We have installed 500W of solar (with another 250W panel to be fitted). We have an MPPT charge controller (MorningStar TS-60) and these sunny days, it takes no time to fill our batteries, especially as our fridge is out of action. I'm wondering if there's a straightforward (inexpensive) way to divert the excess power to our immersion heater to heat the water tank? I think it's a 1kw immersion heater. We have a 1kw inverter also. I guess a more low powered immersion heater would be needed?

I'm currently fitting out a 64ft narrowboat and have reached the point of fitting out the plumbing. I'm concentrating on the fresh water system, of which im adopting a very similar (if not identical) structure to C-Warm's schematic drawing...(see image link below) http://www.tnorrismarine.co.uk/images/cal1.JPG This system on paper looks pretty straight forward to me, I've sourced most of the parts yet connecting them together is a mystery to me. I'll be using push fit Hep2O which is relatively basic to fit, my concern lies more with installing the main components like the calorifier, water pump, accumulator tank, shower, valves etc... Has anyone installed a fresh water system and can guide me in the right direction? P.s - I'm very new to boating and unfamiliar with plumbing 'know how', hence theoretic or jargon related advice won't really help me, im much more apt at learning in a practical and visual method, I would be truly grateful if you could cater to that medium of information, regardless any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.