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Webasto Advice - Not Heating Water


steve.sharratt

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Hi,

 

I recent purchased a narrowboat which has, I believe,  a Webasto Thermo Top that is providing hot water and heating to a single small fan-driven unit.  When I fire it up, every sounds like it is doing what it should.  Lots of humming and clicking that slowly builds up in intensity. There is no calorifier on the system as the concept was ‘on demand’ hot water. When I start the system I leave it for 10 minutes or so until it seems to settle into an idle. My problem is I am only getting a short burst of hot water (1 litre?) and then about 5-10 litres of Luke warm until it goes cold.  I have tried running the heater at the same time but no difference. Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

 

 

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How does it heat the water? is there a heat exchanger fed by the Webasto?

If so you will only get the contents of the heat exchanger as the Webasto will have shut down due to overheating caused by not having anything else to take the heat away.

It sounds like a very odd system.

Edited by Tracy D'arth
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1 hour ago, steve.sharratt said:

There is no calorifier on the system as the concept was ‘on demand’ hot water.

 

I think you've been had over.

 

Webastos simply do not have the power to provide instantaneous hot water in any volume. You say the hot tap temp subsides to luke warm, this is exactly what I would expect to happen given the (relatively) low power output of the Webby, but I would also expect the luke warm to continue indefinitely. 

 

Important quiestion: Does the webby fire up (with no intervention from you) when you open a hot tap? 

 

 

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Just now, steve.sharratt said:

That what I thought but I was hoping someone would tell me that it should work. It does have a heat exchanger but its small so I think I am going to install a calorifier.  I might rip out the webasto and start from scratch.

 

Did you miss this bit in my post?

 

48 minutes ago, MtB said:

Important quiestion: Does the webby fire up (with no intervention from you) when you open a hot tap? 

 

 

If it fires up, then not all is lost. It might be possible to persuade it to work passably well. After all, the smallest of instantaneous showers are 7kW and I think your Webby is 5kW.

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48 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Important quiestion: Does the webby fire up (with no intervention from you) when you open a hot tap? 

 

 

It seems to. It does stay warm for a while but not enough to put a tea bag in!  I agree that it seems to be doing what you would expect it to. Alas - more money to spend.  To be fair to the original owner (builder) he told me that he had never used it - only enough to test that it got hot (which it does) but clearly didn’t run it long enough to experience its rapid decline.

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1 minute ago, steve.sharratt said:

It seems to. It does stay warm for a while but not enough to put a tea bag in!  I agree that it seems to be doing what you would expect it to. Alas - more money to spend.  To be fair to the original owner (builder) he told me that he had never used it - only enough to test that it got hot (which it does) but clearly didn’t run it long enough to experience its rapid decline.

 

In which case you might find if you close the tap down so there is less flow, the temperature of the (slower flowing) water goes up. Possibly high enough to be useable!

 

This might change your view of things.

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Webasto and Eberspachers are NOT instantaneous (on demand) water heaters, you need a specific heater such as a Morco.

 

Is it an old boat you have just bought or is it a new boat ?

Did you specify the heater system or did it come with it.

It is a relatively new boat at 7 years old although the builder moored and never used it so it is essentially untested.  He told me that a ‘mate’ installed the system.

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Just now, steve.sharratt said:

It is a relatively new boat at 7 years old although the builder moored and never used it so it is essentially untested.  He told me that a ‘mate’ installed the system.

 

Hmmm, a lot of point swerving going on there on the part of the builder. I think he knew perfectly well the hot water barely works, and this is quite probably one of the reasons the boat stayed moored up and never used. 

 

Just my interpretation of the situation. 

 

But to exand on this, you don't need to remove the Webby to have a calorifier. Just add a calorifier and use the Webby to heat it. This will work MUCH better.   

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1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

In which case you might find if you close the tap down so there is less flow, the temperature of the (slower flowing) water goes up. Possibly high enough to be useable!

 

This might change your view of things.

It did occur to me while responding to these posts that it does have some decent water pressure.  My testing has been to open the tap to max so I will try dialling back the pressure tomorrow and see if it makes a difference.

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1 hour ago, steve.sharratt said:

I did try dialling back the pressure but not much difference. I will be measuring up to squeeze in a calorifier over the weekend.  Thanks for all of the feedback. 

 

I don't think the advice was to reduce he pressure but to reduce the flow rate from the tap so the water in in the heat exchanger for longer so it should get warmer.

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