Alde Circulation Pump

[Dave&Sarah]

Hi, wondering if anyone can give me some advice.

 

We have a 41' narrow boat. The hot water/heating system comprises a new surecal calorifier (twin coil), one coil is connected to the engine heat exchanger on a Isuzu 33hp engine which heats the water really well. The second coil is connected to an old Alde 2928 LPG boiler. There are 2 radiators which tee off this feed from the boiler to the second coil. The boiler has seen better days and was going to replace it with the newer version.

 

I was wondering if it is possible to do away with the boiler and just install a 12v circulation pump so that the engine heats the water in the calorifier which then would heat the water in the secondary coil which could be pumped via the circulation pump to the radiators to heat the boat.

 

Do you think this would work?

 

I have run the circulation pump on the existing boiler without the boiler switched on and the secondary coil does get hot but as the radiators tee off this coil, the preferential pathway for the water is directly through the coil and not down to the radiators especially as the coil run between the boiler and calorifier is 22mm pipe and the radiator feed is 15mm pipe.

 

Just thought about installing an in line 12v pump like the one on the new Alde 3010 boiler on the secondary coil and doing away with the boiler completely.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Dave & Sarah

[koukouvagia]

 

I was wondering if it is possible to do away with the boiler and just install a 12v circulation pump so that the engine heats the water in the calorifier which then would heat the water in the secondary coil which could be pumped via the circulation pump to the radiators to heat the boat.

 

 

If I forget to turn off the central heating pump when I've shut down the diesel water heater, the radiators are heated by the calorifier as you envisage. However, I think you'll find that the radiators remove the heat from the calorifier very quickly. In a couple of hours the water in the calorifer is cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dave&Sarah]

If I forget to turn off the central heating pump when I've shut down the diesel water heater, the radiators are heated by the calorifier as you envisage. However, I think you'll find that the radiators remove the heat from the calorifier very quickly. In a couple of hours the water in the calorifer is cold.

Thanks for your help, guess that's the main drawback as we would need to run the engine and only stop it within an hour or so of needing the heating, may prove fairly unsociable if we need heating later on in the evening!

 

Thank you.

 

Dave & Sarah

[mickspangle]

If I forget to turn off the central heating pump when I've shut down the diesel water heater, the radiators are heated by the calorifier as you envisage. However, I think you'll find that the radiators remove the heat from the calorifier very quickly. In a couple of hours the water in the calorifer is cold.

 

 

That's my experience too.

[Dave&Sarah]

Can anyone add any advice or experience with doing this?

 

Help is very much appreciated?

 

Dave & Sarah

[trackman]

I've had experience of two different boats where in theory engine heat could be transferred to the radiators via the calorifier as described by the OP.

In one some heat did get through but once the engine stopped it didn't take long for the calorifier to go cold. No hot water and no heating, not a good outcome!

On the second boat virtually no heat seems to get to the radiators anyway, so the idea doesn't work at all.

Seems to me apparently minor differences in set-up will make a big difference to whether this method works. The only way to be sure is to try it on your set-up and see.

When it does work it is only a viable way of heating a boat if there is means to switch to an alternative heat source as soon as the engine is turned off.

I'd suggest that doing away with the boiler is not a good idea unless you put in some other heating. On our boat we've a boatman's stove we use 24/7 in winter for basic heating. We have water heating from the engine via the usual coil in the calorifier, and also a diesel stove with a boiler that runs a radiator and heats the calorifier via a 2nd coil. That probably sounds excessive, but it's what the boat came with and it means great versatility, and security that we can heat ourselves and get some hot water whatever happens.

The diesel stove is very rarely used but is brilliant as a rapid source of heat/hot water when we've left the boat for a while in cool/cold weather. We could live without it though.

As a minimum I'd want the engine heat to the calorifier for hot water, and the solid fuel stove for boat heating.

A final comment, gas is quite expensive as a form of heating if you intend to be aboard for any length of time in cold weather. People with Alde boilers where we were this time last year were changing 13kg bottles at @ £23 a throw as fast as we were emptying 25kg bags of smokeless fuel at £9 a time.

 

trackman