Alde comfort 2920 Problem

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I had the same - it said it would take 10 minutes to download, I left it for about 15 minutes and then gave up.

 

And trying it on my phone, it gave me a full page warning that it might contain pornographic image!

 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

And trying it on my phone, it gave me a full page warning that it might contain pornographic image!

 

 

 

I got some American spam about frying orange peel to make your house smell nice 'in the fall'.

 

When I tried to copy & paste it locked my PC up.

 

I won't be opening any more of his links.

[Flyboy]

https://imgur.com/a/MqQy2S0

Link doesn't work for me either.

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

And trying it on my phone, it gave me a full page warning that it might contain pornographic image!

 

 

 

I got the same, but when I clicked OK I got this.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, David Mack said:

I got the same, but when I clicked OK I got this.

 

Ok they were right, a photo of pussy!
 

 

[Bjarki06]

4 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Your link doesn't work for me. Can you paste your images directly into your posts please?

 

Thanks.

Aaah sorry I did it that way because it often says it’s too big for the forum sometimes, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Hopefully this does...

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I got some American spam about frying orange peel to make your house smell nice 'in the fall'.

 

When I tried to copy & paste it locked my PC up.

 

I won't be opening any more of his links.

Very sorry! I just copied and pasted the link that it gave me when I uploaded the album of 3 pictures. Not sure why it would say that. I’ve uploaded them to the forum this time, the only reason I did it with imgur was because the other day the forum wasn’t letting me upload (I think because the pictures were above 2mb)

Edited October 26, 2019 by Bjarki06

[Alan de Enfield]

9 hours ago, Bjarki06 said:

Aaah sorry I did it that way because it often says it’s too big for the forum sometimes, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Hopefully this does...

Very sorry! I just copied and pasted the link that it gave me when I uploaded the album of 3 pictures. Not sure why it would say that. I’ve uploaded them to the forum this time, the only reason I did it with imgur was because the other day the forum wasn’t letting me upload (I think because the pictures were above 2mb)

Yes you have found the calorifier.

Now if you can follow each pipe (both in and out, there should be either 4 or 6) to their destination and then sketch it out showing any other pipes that T into them, along with their destination it will help diagnose what you have.

 

Imagine a sketch of the 'London Underground' showing all the 'lines', stations and junctions, that is what is needed (but not the underground - obviously !)

[Tony Brooks]

I would add to Alan's request that you take some trouble to lay he diagram out in such a way that we can see the high and low points in the system together with any parts where the pipework slopes downwards (like in the photo of the pump where the outlet might have a slight downward slope). This is because at present the main suspect is trapped air and without an idea of levels and where air might be trapped a diagram will only get us a small way forward.

 

To try to help you work out the pipe runs:

 

If you look at the top photo you will see the end of the calorifier has three pipes on it that you can see. One larger one at the top and two thinner ones nearer the centre. Those thinner ones are almost certainly pipes that connect to the coil inside the unit but at present we do not know for certain if it is the inlet and outlet for one coil or the inlets OR outlets for two coils. If there are no similarly placed pipes in the other end they will be the (single) coil inlet and outlet pipes and if so both the engine cooling circuit and Alde circuit must be linked if BOTH can heat water. I suspect you will find two similar pipes at the other end.

 

Now if you run just one heat source (engine OR Alde) then if its all working one pair of hoses should get warm, the inlet one first and then much later the other one. This will not happen if the calorifier coil is air locked but tracing the pipes back to the heat source should allow you to find which is hottest close to a T piece (Alde) or  where it attached to the top of the engine. That will be the supply to the calorifier and if the other pipe   never gets warm you have an airlock in that part of the circuits.

 

This job will take time and care but at the end of it you will understand how your system is supposed to work and what may be wrong with it.

 

 

[rustydiver]

On 22/10/2019 at 16:27, Tony Brooks said:

 

No the coils are inside the hot water tank, just like he systems most of us had at home before combi-boilers.

 

here is a typical domestic water system diagram, the shower is just like a pair of taps connection wise. Again things are likely to be in different places. The coils are shown better in  this one.

 

 

 

 

You may do well to study the notes on my website - lots of diagrams. www.tb-training.co.uk

 

Tony this got me thinking and I don't know why I haven't tried it at all before.

My set up is the same with 2 coils One for the engine to heat the hot water when going along the other for the Alde boiler when the engine is not in use.

Now my Alde will heat the hot water and circulate to the radiators on the same system. There is a shut off tap valve just before the hot water tank to isolate the radiators in summer.

Now my query is while I'm motoring along the hot water in the tank gets nice and hot via the engine, if i was to turn the circulating pump on would that hot water be enough to slowly heat up the water in the Alde heating system? I will have to try next time we are out on the boat, sadly which won't be for a few weeks now.

It always amazes me how warm the radiators get with the small circulating pump there is on the boiler.

Edited October 27, 2019 by rustydiver

[Boater Sam]

You will find that the rate of heat transfer is too slow for much useful heat to be emitted by the radiators, the surface area of the coils is not sufficient to be used as a heat store.

You should however get some heat out of the radiators.

[Jess--]

7 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

You will find that the rate of heat transfer is too slow for much useful heat to be emitted by the radiators, the surface area of the coils is not sufficient to be used as a heat store.

You should however get some heat out of the radiators.

Sam, I'm going to have to disagree with you, On our boat you could pull heat to the radiators from the calorifier (twin coil) by turning on the boilers pump (but not lighting it).

It wasn't as hot as when the boiler was running but certainly usable heat.

 

There 2 things to remember though.
1. the calorifier has to be up to full heat before the pump goes on (otherwise everything just went cold) / about 2 hours of cruising before switching on

2. switch the pump off before mooring if you still want hot water in the morning.

 

Our calorifier was vertical with the engine to the lower coil and the alde to the top coil so that may have helped (by having the alde coil in the hottest part of the calorifier).

[Tony Brooks]

I agree with Jess - in the summer, but suspect that in the depths of winter when its really cold Sam is probably correct. With Jess from personal experience and Sam from a scientific point of view. Juts compare the surface area of the coils - heat in, and the radiators - heat out. A heat exchanger in the return to the engine pipe is likely to be much, much better at heating the rads.

[jacko264]

I don't know if this has been asked  

 but when you turn the hot water top on is there plenty of water presser   If not is the pumps under the front steps working

When running the engine do the pipes get hot going to the cylinder (clarifier )  from the engine if so there should be hot water   If the pipes don't get hot  why not .?  It could be a air lock 

jacko

[jacko264]

Hi did you ever get the hot water working  just wonderd

jacko

[bizzard]

Friday night, Saturday morning he was probably busy doing his Pools.

[jacko264]

It's a shame if they don't say if it's working and what they did as it may of helped  someone else with the infomation in the future 

jacko

[Bjarki06]

Just a quick update to everyone who has helped. We now have hot water relatively quickly after running the boiler for 45 minutes or so on high.

 

i think that it’s a combination of air having worked out of the calofier over the last few weeks and the system being plumbed in oddly. The valve which turns off hot water to the radiators also seems to turn off hot water to the taps. I think this is because the calorifier is at the opposite end of the boat to the boiler so the line which takes fluid to the calorifier is the same one which runs through the radiators so when we turn off the radiators nothing goes through to the calorifier. We had been running it with the radiators turned off assuming that would allow more hot water to the calorifier and allow it to heat up faster although I’m sure we tried it both ways at one point.

 

Now it has got colder and we’re running the radiators more we’ve found we’re getting hot water within 40 minutes or so of turning on the heating.

 

Thanks very much to everyone for their help, I now feel as though I understand heating systems on boats a lot more!

[Tony Brooks]

Many thanks for the feedback, many don't bother. Pleased you seem to have got it sorted.

[MtB]

13 minutes ago, Bjarki06 said:

I now feel as though I understand heating systems on boats a lot more!

 

Not really! Just your boat in particular. 

 

Don't expect your understanding of your system to transfer to other boats you may own. There is a HUGE spectrum of ways in which to plumb a boat so it sort of works but not very well, and I'd say collectively boaters have discovered all of 'em!!