Hot water question

[tipsygypsy]

Hi all

 

I wonder if anyone knows why we seem to have a shortage of hot water on our narrow boat at the minute.

The engine seems to create some hot water but if we run the generator we seem to get less that way

 

Im not sure how the whole thing works

im sure there is someone much more knowledgeable than me around who can help

 

many thanks

 

[Chris Pink]

It's unlikely that your generator heats the water. Without more information it's impossible to tell whether there's anything else that does.

 

The basic system you describe; the engine is water-cooled and the water it heats is used to heat the water that you use ( indirectly, ie it's not the same water)

Edited June 2, 2013 by Chris Pink

[Titus]

It's unlikely that your generator heats the water.

 

It depends on what sort of gennie you've got, I've a whispergen which does heat the water, we need more info please.

 

Dave

[Chris Pink]

True. I did read my post and think exactly that.

[tipsygypsy]

Hi

we have a Honda 2.6 generator, apparently the water heats up from the engine ok, but the generator does not warm it as much.

I think we are getting less hot water now than before but I have no idea why that might be.

Is it anything to do with the battery?

 

Our engine is possibly cooled with canal water but I need to check that for sure.....

 

When we connect to a shoreline the ampage is set to 16 we were told that when we bought a 2 KW generator to set the ampage to 8 .

 

now we have a 2.6 KW generator we turned up the amps to 9.5....is this right or should we go higher on the amps??

 

thanks

Edited June 2, 2013 by tipsygypsy

[Paul C]

Your boat probably has the following to heat water:

 

1. Calorifier heated by engine coolant

2. In this calorifier may be an immersion heater element

3. This element may be connected to a shoreline electricity supply; or generator

4. Some other heating, eg stove back boiler, Alde (gas) or Erberschpascher (sp) (diesel) heating system

 

Before going any further, can you tell us what the boat has?

Edited June 2, 2013 by Paul C

[blackrose]

I think that using petrol to power the immerson to heat your water is an expensive way of doing it - unless of course you're using the generator to do other things at the same time. I would imagine that the engine would heat water cheaper and quicker.

 

The problem you're experiencing should have nothing to do with the batteries, unless for some reason you're using the inverter at the same time while running the generator - and taking your power for the immersion heater from the inverter?

 

If you want to use the generator to heat water directly (AC power to immersion) that's one thing, but don't use the batteries (inverter), because your whatever you're using to charge the batteries may not keep up with the demand.

Edited June 2, 2013 by blackrose

[tipsygypsy]

Hi

we have a Webasto water heater, just found out!

we tend to wake up every morning with nil power....but we do leave phones charging over night. nothing else though,

 

so we are thinking to put the engine on for a bit longer during the day...

see how it goes???

 

thanks for all help really appreciate it

[Paul C]

Hi

we have a Webasto water heater, just found out!

we tend to wake up every morning with nil power....but we do leave phones charging over night. nothing else though,

 

so we are thinking to put the engine on for a bit longer during the day...

see how it goes???

 

thanks for all help really appreciate it

 

Webasto water heater would explain things! They consume quite a lot of electrical power too, as well as diesel, when water heating.

 

Wake up with nil power - that is key here. Putting batteries to one side for now, how much electrical power do you consume and how (much) do you generate this. Obviously, you need to balance consumption and generation of power, in fact batteries being inefficient, if you're generating it in one big lump or consuming it in a short space of time, or at different times, you'll need more generated than consumed. Without a fairly good idea of this, you'll struggle to find the root cause of your power issues - for example simply replacing dud batteries with new ones won't help long term.

[tipsygypsy]

Thanks Paul

 

these are things that we not told when we purchased our boat from new

so looks like we need more charging during the day

 

:)best wishes

[Jo_]

If you are around other boats (and I assume you might be if you're talking hook-ups etc.), I'd suggest you ask your neighbours who knows most and could come and go through things with you. Nobody minds being called upon for advice - in fact, in my experience, most boaters positively thrive on being able to share and help!

 

And if your boat was from new and you've not had it long, you could always ask the builders about hot water, charging times, likely drain on power etc.

 

Be brave and ask ... everyone's been where you are and got the T-shirt at some point in their boaty life.

[Chris Pink]

Sound advice Jo, there are so many misconceptions that a walk around their boat with an experienced neighbour is definitely the way to go.

 

Where are you tipsygipsy?

 

I did exactly this for someone's electrics last week and I'm happy to report he now knows a lot more about the fundamentals and I found him a couple of manuals too.