eperspacher use

[roberto123]

Hi everyone

 

Just bought a narrow boat and I haven't moved in yet, but have been going down to clean and clear some of the previous owners clutter!

 

I was wondering about the eperspacher though. Mine has a manual switch on/off as far as I can see. Do you keep it running 24/7 when living on the boat or just fire it up when you need hot water?

 

THis might seem like a silly question but I'm literally a narrow boat newbie!!

 

thanks

[Tony Brooks]

7 minutes ago, roberto123 said:

Hi everyone

 

Just bought a narrow boat and I haven't moved in yet, but have been going down to clean and clear some of the previous owners clutter!

 

I was wondering about the eperspacher though. Mine has a manual switch on/off as far as I can see. Do you keep it running 24/7 when living on the boat or just fire it up when you need hot water?

 

THis might seem like a silly question but I'm literally a narrow boat newbie!!

 

thanks

 

Expect all boats to be different, especially as many suffer their owner's DIY attempts, but basically the Eber normally provides central heating via radiators and domestic hot water, so during the winter a live-aboard may keep it on all the time. However, if you do not have enough or large enough radiators, that might lead to unreliability caused by carbon build up. I hope that you also have a solid fuel stove, they help keep the boat dry.

 

PS, if you have a water cooled engine, there is an excellent chance that your hot water will also be provided by the engine.

Edited February 17 by Tony Brooks

[roberto123]

Thanks, I've got some big ass radiators which I've turned off for now as it's not so cold, so the Eber is just for hot water which I'm using for cleaning. 

 

So say you went out for the day, or stayed over night off your boat, would you turn your Eber off then? (Unless you wanted to keep the boat warm while away I guess).

[blackrose]

Assuming it's an eberspacher water heater/central heating boiler (rather than Airtronic), and the boat also has a solid fuel stove then most liveaboards use the solid fuel stove as their main form of heating and the Eber as the auxiliary heater to get the boat warm more quickly when you come home.

 

What these heaters don't like is being run for short periods, so if you switch it on firstly it needs adequate battery voltage and it needs to be left running for at least a couple of hours. Leaving it on 24/7 doesn't sound like a good idea either, although I'm sure some people do. 

 

*You mentioned moving in so I've assumed you will be living aboard. If that's the case then I hope the eberspacher isn't your only form of heating because they're not reliable enough for living aboard in winter.

 

[Tony Brooks]

3 minutes ago, blackrose said:

You mentioned moving in so I've assumed you will be living aboard. If that's the case then I hope the eberspacher isn't your only form of heating because they're not reliable enough for living aboard in winter.

 

And that leads on to all sorts of potential problems with the batteries, the charging system, and how you use it to recharge the batteries. Welcome to a very steep learning curve.

[blackrose]

15 minutes ago, roberto123 said:

Thanks, I've got some big ass radiators which I've turned off for now as it's not so cold, so the Eber is just for hot water which I'm using for cleaning. 

 

Don't do that. Switch the rads back on. What you don't want is the coolant returning to the boiler still hot because that will cause it the cycle down and coke up. The coolant needs to lose its heat before returning to the eberspacher. In fact, if your rads have thermostatic radiator valves fitted I'd take them off the rads if I were you (they just unscrew). TRVs don't work well with these types of heaters because they shut the rads off when the boat gets warm and then you have the same situation described above. These heaters need to be run hard.

 

15 minutes ago, roberto123 said:

So say you went out for the day, or stayed over night off your boat, would you turn your Eber off then? (Unless you wanted to keep the boat warm while away I guess).

 

Yes. If you're just popping out to the shops for half an hour you can leave it running but if you're out for the day switch it off. You can leave it running overnight while you're onboard if you want but your neighbours might not be that happy with you if it's noisy. 

 

I'm not sure why you'd want to leave an eber on all night unless it's your only form of heating? 

 

5 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

And that leads on to all sorts of potential problems with the batteries, the charging system, and how you use it to recharge the batteries. Welcome to a very steep learning curve.

 

Yes. How are your batteries being charged?

Edited February 17 by blackrose

[Rob-M]

We used our Eberspacher just for hot water and ran it for around 2hrs a day if not running the engine as the engine also provided hot water.  The pipework from the Eberspacher had a t piece which ran to the calorifier and towel rail one way and the radiators the other, the feed to the radiators could be isolated to just keep the calorifier circuit in use.  The Eberspacher packed up recently but had been used like this for over 20 years.

[blackrose]

8 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

The Eberspacher packed up recently but had been used like this for over 20 years.

 

Yes I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not best practice. Every pipework configuration is different. Other people might do it for a year and then find their boiler is coked up beyond viable servicing. Also we don't know what size boiler the OP has, or for that matter what you have. A smaller boiler might cope with calorifier only heating better than a larger one, but in any case the basic question and principle is: How long does it take to heat your calorifier? What happens to the boiler after that point if that's the only heat sink?

Edited February 17 by blackrose

[Sea Dog]

I'd echo the sentiments of @blackrose above.

 

Eberspacher had a bit of a reputation for early failures some years ago and did their own investigation. Their ensuing report is a available on the web (Google is your friend), but essentially they found that when lightly loaded they coked up and eventually failed. The key is to work it hard then shut it down which is to say have a keen ear for it going into the low power mode - you can hear it run down and the dose pump ticking go slow.  I tend to use mine in 1hr bursts which allows me to warm the boat on a morning whilst the solid fuel stove comes back up to speed and gives a tank of hot water. Even in that hour half an ear is listening for short cycling. This usage pattern appears not too dissimilar to how @Rob-M got 20 years out of his.

 

Additionally, my own regime is to use "Reliability Centred Maintenance" principles and leave the damned thing alone if it's happy. Mine is 15 years old and has never been interfered with - others have had different experiences. I

[blackrose]

So Seadog, does that mean you try to shut it down when you can hear is on full cycle or do you wait until it starts slowing down? I often wondered when is the best time to shut it down and also try to do it while it's still working hard. But other times I don't care and just shut it down anytime because I'm sure I'm over-thinking it.

Edited February 17 by blackrose

[Alan de Enfield]

I have had a variety of Ebers and Webastos over many many years and I used them all in the same way :

 

They are switched on when we go to the boat in April/May and are switched off when we leave the boat October/November.

 

It is not 'fiddled' with, the thermostat is set and they always seem quite happy with their own company and do what they want. I have never had one serviced and the only break down was a couple of years ago when I had water in the fuel which got sucked up into the Eber. Fresh fuel and letting the Eber pump it thru and the problem was solved.

 

Ebers were designed to spend many hours left to their own devices keeping 'long distance' coaches warm, I'm pretty sure that the coach driver didn't have to turn it on and off every hour to stop it cycling onto 'low' and then back on to 'high'.

[Sea Dog]

Mine has a programmer which has a 1 hour boost button. Generally, that does the job although I still listen. Like you, I like to shut it down when it's on full power, so I wait for it to run back up, give it a couple of minutes, then switch it off. Meticulous or overthinking - I'm not sure, but it seems to like it.

9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Ebers were designed to spend many hours left to their own devices keeping 'long distance' coaches warm, I'm pretty sure that the coach driver didn't have to turn it on and off every hour to stop it cycling onto 'low' and then back on to 'high'.

But they're Airtronic, aren't they? I believe Eber didn't have a problem with those - their investigation was only into early failures of the DWs. It's the water coming back to the unit hot that causes the short cycling, which is not an issue with the warm air blower.

Edited February 17 by Sea Dog
Missing words

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

But they're Airtronic, aren't they?

 

On the current boat - Yes, an 8Kw 'air blower'.

On Previous boats I've had 'Eber Water heaters' just running on a thermostat.

[Sea Dog]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

On the current boat - Yes, an 8Kw 'air blower'.

On Previous boats I've had 'Eber Water heaters' just running on a thermostat.

I meant the coaches, but the same applies to boat blowers. It seems to me that the DW issue might be a vulnerability rather than a certainty and I'm sure that there are many others like yours without issues. I suspect also that the regular dismantling for servicing introduces additional risk, although I doubt a manufacturer would support 'neglect' - did you follow an annual/hours-based service routine?

[Alan de Enfield]

8 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

...........................did you follow an annual/hours-based service routine?

 

 

29 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I have never had one serviced and the only break down was a couple of years ago when I had water in the fuel which got sucked up into the Eber. Fresh fuel and letting the Eber pump it thru and the problem was solved.

 

[Bee]

Thing is that you do need an adjustable heater on a boat, its chilly in the morning, cold in the evening and warm (sometimes) in the day and turning the thing on and off is not good for it. They also use an appreciable amount of 12 volt electric and that's OK if you have a good mains supply but in effect that means you are using your charger and batteries as a 240 - 12volt transformer, maybe not too good either. The perfect way to heat a boat has yet to be invented but a coal stove has possibly less disadvantages with a couple of cheap mains fan heaters if you have mains electric (Not off your inverter though!) Others will have lots of different opinions.

[Sea Dog]

4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

 

Sorry Alan, you'd already answered the servicing query - which further supports my own "Reliability Centred Maintenance" approach! 

[Momac]

45 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

The key is to work it hard then shut it down

That what I do 

Full power or nothing. 

It seems to work well.

 

[Naughty Cal]

14 minutes ago, MartynG said:

That what I do 

Full power or nothing. 

It seems to work well.

 

We were the opposite with our Webasto air heater. (Ebersplutter equivalent)

 

It was turned on just before we got to the boat Friday evening and in the winter often wasn't turned off again until Monday morning when we left for work.

 

It was only serviced once in 13 years and that's when we had to take it off to replace the fan unit. Other than that it worked like clockwork. 

 

Brilliant piece of kit.

[Sea Dog]

4 hours ago, Naughty Cal said:

We were the opposite with our Webasto air heater. (Ebersplutter equivalent)

 

It was turned on just before we got to the boat Friday evening and in the winter often wasn't turned off again until Monday morning when we left for work.

 

It was only serviced once in 13 years and that's when we had to take it off to replace the fan unit. Other than that it worked like clockwork. 

 

Brilliant piece of kit.

Wasn't yours a blower though as opposed to wet radiator central heating?

[blackrose]

7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I'm pretty sure that the coach driver didn't have to turn it on and off every hour to stop it cycling onto 'low' and then back on to 'high'.

 

I don't think anyone here suggested doing that either, we were simply talking about what stage in the cycle was best to shut it down.

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Wasn't yours a blower though as opposed to wet radiator central heating?

 

Yes from memory theirs was an air heater.

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I don't think anyone here suggested doing that either, we were simply talking about what stage in the cycle was best to shut it down.

 

The newer Eberspachers (and Webastos?) are specifically designed to be throttleable down to lower power levels, about a third of maximum IIRC, and shouldn't have any problems running only hot water or radiators (or ones with TRVs).

 

There have been reports of the older ones coking up when run at reduced power/cycling and also running for years with no problems. I believe many of the coking-up problems were before ULSD (ultra-low-sulphur-diesel) was introduced and have largely gone away since then.

Edited February 17 by IanD

[blackrose]

4 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

The newer Eberspachers (and Webastos?) are specifically designed to be throttleable down to lower power levels, about a third of maximum IIRC, and shouldn't have any problems running only hot water or radiators (or ones with TRVs).

 

There have been reports of the older ones coking up when run at reduced power/cycling and also running for years with no problems. I believe many of the coking-up problems were before ULSD (ultra-low-sulphur-diesel) was introduced and have largely gone away since then.

 

Ok, well that's good to know. 👍

 

But after an old oversized eberspacher got so coked up it was only good for the skip I'll probably continue my habit of running my current Webasto hard.

[nb Innisfree]

Biggest prob with these kind of heaters was high sulphur diesel - aka gas oil. Most probs cleared up with the introduction of ULSD 14 or 15 yrs ago, maybe it can sneak by occasionally? 

[robtheplod]

Interesting thread.... servicing the Webasto was one thing i was thinking may need to plan this year, but encouraged by this!!!