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Diesel heater woes


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Right, let's start by stating i know less than nothing about the workings of heating, so be gentle.

 

The boat was originally fitted with a Mikuni MX40, when this died the previous owner replaced it with an MV Heating MV Hydro 5-S, which i understand was pretty much a straight swap.

This was working fine when we viewed the boat and we were shown how to pop it on with the controller, the owner liked to run it for half an hour to warm the boat up. Since taking ownership it has never worked for us, it would try to fire up and make a lot of noise but just stop after about ten mins of trying.

We had it serviced, and now it runs for as long as you like, but does not heat up the rads.

 

On the attached pic, there's a gate valve that for some reason has no wheel on it. To the left of this valve, the pipe gets very hot when the heater is running, to the right of the valve it's stone cold. I had nothing to hand to try and move this when on the boat, but am i right in assuming this is stopping the flow of water to the rads inside the boat as this is where the pipework heads to? Sadly i have no other pics at the minute and not sure when we're next aboard to take more.

Any advice greatly appreciated, or simple things to try, or what to take pics of for further assistance in future.

 

It's no great loss to not use it, as we get by with the stove, but it would be nice to fathom it out and know it's working. ;) 
 

 

IMG_1073.jpeg

Edited by Hudds Lad
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Looks like it isolates the heating side. I take it when used as it is shown only the domestic hot water gets heated by the  diesel heater. The red hand wheel could have fallen of into the bilge or just removed for some reason. 

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Without following the pipes one cannot be absolutely sure.  However I bet the purpose of this valve is to shut off the heat to the rads and send it all to the cauliflower.  

 

Opening it, with a suitable spanner or mole type grip is unlikely to harm anything, so go for it.

 

If the  rads heat up, as expected,  I would replace the gate valve with a full flow lever valve.  These do not suffer from sticking like gate valves do.  Easier to see if they ate open orcshut too.  The existing nuts and olives should be reusable.

 

NB the appliance isolation valve in the pipe to the calorifier.  This cuts off the flow to the calorifier.   This must never be shut with the gate valve shut when the heater is ON.

 

N

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Don't these previous owners or their brokers ever hang around to answer questions from the new owners? Every boat is bespoke with its own systems and idiosyncrasies and there can be a lot of them. 

 

If I ever sold my boat I'd have to spend a whole day with the new owners going over every system and every part of the boat and then be contactable for a period of time to answer questions. It's ridiculous to hand over a boat and just expect a new owner to get on with it.

Edited by blackrose
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20 minutes ago, Jon57 said:

Looks like it isolates the heating side. I take it when used as it is shown only the domestic hot water gets heated by the  diesel heater. The red hand wheel could have fallen of into the bilge or just removed for some reason. 

Sounds reasonable, when i was looking at it we’d just got back to the marina so the engine had already heated a tank of water. I did look in the bilge just in case, nothing doing, have sourced a wheel to fit on when back down.

 

19 minutes ago, BEngo said:

Without following the pipes one cannot be absolutely sure.  However I bet the purpose of this valve is to shut off the heat to the rads and send it all to the cauliflower.  

 

Opening it, with a suitable spanner or mole type grip is unlikely to harm anything, so go for it.

 

If the  rads heat up, as expected,  I would replace the gate valve with a full flow lever valve.  These do not suffer from sticking like gate valves do.  Easier to see if they ate open orcshut too.  The existing nuts and olives should be reusable.

 

NB the appliance isolation valve in the pipe to the calorifier.  This cuts off the flow to the calorifier.   This must never be shut with the gate valve shut when the heater is ON.

 

N

Thanks for that ;)

 

5 minutes ago, blackrose said:

Don't these previous owners or their brokers ever hang around to answer questions from the new owners? Every boat is bespoke with its own systems and idiosyncrasies and there can be a lot of them. 

 

If I ever sold my boat I'd have to spend a whole day with the new owners going over every system and every part of the boat. It's ridiculous to hand over a boat and just expect a new owner to get on with it.

To be fair it was working when bought, it was a few months later when we found it didn’t work, we got in touch and they gave us a few things to try which didn’t help. We didn’t like to keep bugging them as it was a wrench for them to sell as deteriorating health had forced them to get shut in the first place.

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12 minutes ago, blackrose said:

If I ever sold my boat I'd have to spend a whole day with the new owners going over every system and every part of the boat and then be contactable for a period of time to answer questions. It's ridiculous to hand over a boat and just expect a new owner to get on with it.

Did this with Parglena including a couple of call outs as they went down the GU.

To be fair it was their first boat, I always thought it was brave if them to take it on.

Already been asked by the broker to do a handover when Loddon sells just hope I remember everything😱

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

So, just to further get my head around this, the gate valve should be opened to allow the rads to heat and the isolation valve just left alone?

With both open will it have to heat the cistern as well as the rads? 

 

It should, but you may need to balance the rads so there is some flow "left" for the calorifier - I assume that is what you mean by cistern. Or partially close the gate valve to achieve the same thing, but my betting is that you won't have to.

Edited by Tony Brooks
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11 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

It should, but you may need to balance the rads so there is some flow "left" for the calorifier - I assume that is what you mean by cistern. Or partially close the gate valve to achieve the same thing, but my betting is that you won't have to.

Yes, i typed cistern instead of calorifier for some unknown reason :) 

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  • 3 weeks later...

As an update, fixed new wheel on valve this weekend. Initially it would only do about a quarter turn, but with gentle persuasion it free’d up and was able to open fully. Fired up the heater and the radiators began to warm, so considering this a win!

 

But, the universe decided to adjust itself, as the heating was fixed the sodding horn gave up the ghost so something else for the job list :D 

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