Hurrican v Eberspacher

[BiggusDickus]

I am in the process of deciding whether to have a Eberspacher or Hurrican heating systems. What are the pros and cons? Are Hurrican heaters worth the extra expense?

[Ray T]

As far as I am aware Hurricane Heaters are tolerant of red diesel, Eberspachers aren't. Also you are not supposed to run an Eby for more than 4 hours at a time, I believe Hurricane can be run for 24 hours. Or so I was told by Calcutt Boats, who are Hurricane Heater distributors

Edited October 3, 2012 by Ray T

[n.b.Goldie]

Thread here http://www.canalworl...=1 It would appear there might be an issue with the Hurricane.

 

Regards

Ditchdabber

[DaveC]

As far as I am aware Hurricane Heaters are tolerant of red diesel, Eberspachers aren't. Also you are not supposed to run an Eby for more than 4 hours at a time, I believe Hurricane can be run for 24 hours. Or so I was told by Calcutt Boats, who are Hurricane Heater distributors

 

Our Eberspacher is very happy with red diesel, and equally happy to run for a lot more than 4 hours.

 

Dave

[nb Innisfree]

It depends on what is meant by red diesel, Ebers, Webasto and Mikuni didn't run very well on high sulpher stuff - more accurately called gas oil, which was usually sold by marine outlets- but they seem to be much improved since the introduction of ULSD. Mikuni claimed their heaters ran ok on red diesel but they didn't specifically state gas oil.

[Roger Gunkel]

The first question is whether you will be a full time liveaboard or a leisure boater. If you are intending to be a full time liveaboard, then you really need to take advice from those that are already in that situation. The next question is whether the Eberspacher that you are considering is an air blown or water circulating type. Most modern Eber heating systems are based on the D5 or D10 Hydronic type which are both water circulating. The long running reliability problems with these heaters and the similar Webasto and Mikuni types, is that they require diesel to the EN590, road quality diesel specification. This should be available now on the waterways, but they will give problems if run continuously on higher sulphur or heating type oil. The manufacturers also DO NOT reccommend them as permanent 24/7 central heating systems, and neither will the vast majority of permanent liveaboard boaters who have had them as a sole source of heating. They also require a reliable electrical system,to start, use continuous power and can be intrusively noisy.

 

However, for leisure use where the requirement is for quick access to short term push button heat, then they can be effective. I have an air blown Eberspacher on my small leisure boat which has never been a problem for occasional use. My liveaboard one was an expensive disaster.

 

Hurricanes are a type that I have had no experience of, so can only advise you to look at other linked threads, but be aware that all diesel heating systems will use a similar ammount of fuel, so if you intend to run your heating continuously through the Winter as you would in a house, then expect to use arround 200ltrs of fuel per month.

 

Finally, most experienced liveaboard boaters will advise that solid fuel stoves are the most reliable way to heat a boat, and the cheapest to install and run.

 

Roger

[BruceinSanity]

Thread here http://www.canalworl...=1 It would appear there might be an issue with the Hurricane.

 

 

As liveaboards we had an Eber on our last boat and a Hurricane on this one and certainly don't regret the change. There has I know been a run of compressor problems with some Hurricanes this year, but it looks like they've been sorted - Hurricane had changed supplier, AIUI, and have now changed back again.

 

The only thing about the Hurricane is that it seems to be greedier of electricity than the Eber, especially first thing in the morning when there's a long boiler run to get everything up to temp.

 

When on a shoreline, it's just like having central heating in a house, set the thermostats and the timer and leave it to get on with it.

 

And I can confirm that the servicing every 1000 hours is dead easy, even I can do it.

 

Edited for finger problems.

Edited October 3, 2012 by BruceinSanity

[BiggusDickus]

Thanks everyone for your replies most helpful.