eberspacher servicing ..... for beginners

[chubby]

Hello,

 

when i bought my boat last spring it had an eberspacher d4w ( i think - a manual i have is for models 4&5 and as yet haven t seen anything on mine to say which ) and seemed ok . I had to replace the calorifier which has meant loss of coolant from the pipes to and from the rads . i need to get this heater working again soon but i want it to be configured in a way that enables it to heat just the calorifier for most of the time and the four rads occasionally . Primarily its for hot water as i don t want to run the engine just for this purpose if avoidable .

last time i switched it on many months ago it went thru the start up with all that noise , blew white smoke , made a screeching sound and shut down . First i need to put coolant back into the pipes and then i will try to turn on the eberspacher but i m expecting the same result as last time .

Ive read lots of previous posts on servicing these heaters and seen the youtube video . Am i to understand that therefore a service is essentially a replacing of the glow plug and two gaskets & a cleaning of the combustion chamber - this is de coking ? Would i be right in thinking that in many cases this process would solve most issues and its what should be tried first ?

Im looking to get the eberspacher running properly before adjustments are made to the pipework to enable me to just heat the calorifier alone . Does anyone else out there use one for just water ? also is removing it from all the pipes going in and out going to cause problems possibly - i' m assuming i have to remove it completely to have a go at servicing . If all else fails then i ll look into shelling out for it to be looked at . Lots of folk have bad things to say about these units but im thinking that if looked after , serviced and cleaned up regularly and used regularly then they ought to be reliable . But regular servicing means learning to do it yourself .... unless your minted .... i m not ! The parts seem cheap enough so service costs must be mostly labour .

 

Sorry its a long post but i thought id try to explain myself thoroughly from the outset and thanks alot for any advice you can offer .

cheers

[Bobbybass]

When mine made a horrible screeching sound an shut down..it was the air fan....

 

It was...expensive..!

[pquinn]

hello Chubby,it will make the job much easier if you remove it to service it and lay it on a bench.some body on here recommended plugging the in/out pipes with wine bottle corks [plastic ones] this worked very well for me and i only lost a small amount of coolant.i dont think you need to replace the glow plug unless it is knackered.when you replace the unit you need to bleed it ,on my unit dw5 there is a bleed screw on the top.

i mainly use the eber for heating water but sometimes for a bit of back up heat and just turn on /off radiators to suit. paul

[Pilly]

My area of expertise is domestic oil fired heating and cooking equipment. When heating more than one zone you will normally find a motorised valve, either mid position (Y plan) or Zone valve (S plan) tee'd into the flow from the boiler.

 

I don't have any experience at all of the small units used on the boats. MtB might be your best bet, I'm sure he won't be far away.

[Bobbybass]

The most common setup for narrowboat....is a radiator heating circuit...and then standard hand operated valves to 'T' the water through the calorifier.

 

These do not normally shut off the radiator circuit as there is a danger of shutting off rads and calorifier and then leaving the heat nowhere to go.

 

It could be done with a motorised valve..but then you have to find a 12 volt one or leave your invertor on 24/7

[Pilly]

Quite right Bob, there must be a minimum flow maintained through the heater, not sure what that will be. If not maintained it will almost certainly invalidate any warranty.

 

There are plenty of 12V solenoids available to act as a zone valve. I suspect the programmer might also operate on no/low voltage.

[chubby]

Thanks folks

 

I m under the impression that out of four rads you would have to have at least one left on even if u only really want hot water . I shall only bother to look into making the necessary changes to the plumbing if i can get the eberspacher working first . i shall put the coolant back in the header tank and pipes and fire the thing up and see what happens .... or doesn t .

Bobbybass - your first reply is rather concerning . Expensive repair isn t an option for me so if its knackered it ll stay that way for some time which will be a shame as it would be v useful

 

cheers

Edited January 28, 2014 by chubby

[matty40s]

I run my Eber for hot water only, however, have to leave a single radiator open half way otherwise the header tank goes all bubbly and makes strange noises!!(technical description ).

This also means I have a hot towel when leaving the shower so isn't such a bind.

I found the plastic wine cork method very satisfactory to avoid loss of coolant

[steelaway]

Hello,

 

when i bought my boat last spring it had an eberspacher d4w ( i think - a manual i have is for models 4&5 and as yet haven t seen anything on mine to say which ) and seemed ok . I had to replace the calorifier which has meant loss of coolant from the pipes to and from the rads . i need to get this heater working again soon but i want it to be configured in a way that enables it to heat just the calorifier for most of the time and the four rads occasionally . Primarily its for hot water as i don t want to run the engine just for this purpose if avoidable .

last time i switched it on many months ago it went thru the start up with all that noise , blew white smoke , made a screeching sound and shut down . First i need to put coolant back into the pipes and then i will try to turn on the eberspacher but i m expecting the same result as last time .

Ive read lots of previous posts on servicing these heaters and seen the youtube video . Am i to understand that therefore a service is essentially a replacing of the glow plug and two gaskets & a cleaning of the combustion chamber - this is de coking ? Would i be right in thinking that in many cases this process would solve most issues and its what should be tried first ?

Im looking to get the eberspacher running properly before adjustments are made to the pipework to enable me to just heat the calorifier alone . Does anyone else out there use one for just water ? also is removing it from all the pipes going in and out going to cause problems possibly - i' m assuming i have to remove it completely to have a go at servicing . If all else fails then i ll look into shelling out for it to be looked at . Lots of folk have bad things to say about these units but im thinking that if looked after , serviced and cleaned up regularly and used regularly then they ought to be reliable . But regular servicing means learning to do it yourself .... unless your minted .... i m not ! The parts seem cheap enough so service costs must be mostly labour .

 

Sorry its a long post but i thought id try to explain myself thoroughly from the outset and thanks alot for any advice you can offer .

cheers

Hi

 

Basically they are reliable and simple once you understand them.

You need to de-coke them every 1 to 2 years.

You must have a good amount of air going in via the fan (check air filter) the fan is most usual cause of a breakdown as it spins at high speed and is in a hot place.

You can take them apart (carefully) and re lube the bearings. There must be no blockage in the exhaust.

There is a very small fuel filter behind the fuel inlet coupling that can become blocked.

You must be sure that there is no air trapped in the system or the thermal cut out will trip (reset by pushing the red spike back in).

There is a You Tube video for more information.

 

Alex

[bottle]

Ensure batteries are fully charged or the engine is running( higher than tick-over), they do not like low voltage.

[BlueStringPudding]

As someone with a b*ggered Eber system I can give you the wisdom everyone else gave me plus only two weeks ago did I read through every Eber publication on the planet.

I have the same model as you (hydronic). Mine had stopped firing up so I followed the YouTube video and serviced it myself. I'm a coward and a beginner and it went fine. My Eber now fires up and runs

My system is missing the valve between the calorifier and the rads thanks to a crap boatyard rebuilding the calorifier wrongly some years ago. So the Eber runs only till the hot water tank is hot then it shuts down. This leads to it coking up faster. I will be installing a valve when I'm feeling brave.

The Eber always has to have at least one radiator in the circuit to act as a heat sink.Otherwise the Eber can cycle which again leads to coking up. Some people install a heated towel rail in the bathroom for that purpose.

My water pipes leading to the Eber have valves to stop the header tank draining completely when the Eber is uninstalled. Bleeding the Eber when I reinstalled it was easy using the silver bleed screw on the black part of the Eber at the top.

Mine used to chuck out white smoke years ago. Hasn't done for a long while. But I have much better batteries now than back then. This may or may not be related. Some people say that white smoke is caused by water in the fuel. Who knows.

I need to repair the diesel leak from the coupling between the Eber and the fuel filter next. Just waiting for a weekend that I'm home and the weather isn't stormy (cruiser stern!)

Edited January 28, 2014 by BlueStringPudding

[OldGoat]

My Eber type heater prefers one radiator AND the calorifier. The lowheat output is about 1.8Kw, so one rad (if small may not be enough.

 

 

[chubby]

cheers guys . BSP it is very good news to hear of someone else who was hesitant but had a go and had a result . Happy days . i shall set about this prob maybe tomorrow . When i went to start the process by refilling my header tank with coolant i noticed that i had a fair bit of water in the inspection hatch i have to look into the bilge at the rear of the boat so that became my priority . Having sponged most of it out i shall see how it dries out and seekout how the water got there . Leaky porthole i think . Bugger !!

So i shall fill the coolant tomorrow morning and then look into removing the eberspacher if it fails to fire up . I will follow the advice of running the engine when i do this . Thanks again folks and i shall post as to progress as soon as i can . cheers

[BlueStringPudding]

My Eber type heater prefers one radiator AND the calorifier. The lowheat output is about 1.8Kw, so one rad (if small may not be enough.

 

 

 

Sorry - I wasn't clear: I meant the calorifier plus at least one radiator.

[chubby]

just one more thing . The idea of a heated towel rail is an appealing one . quite posh i think ... ive never owned a heated towel rail !! All my rads are down the right hand side of the boat if you are facing the bow . My bathroom is on the left hand side of the boat so the wall on which a towel rail might be fixed is a boat widths distance away from the radiator pipes .

Supposing its poss to isolate the rads from the calorifier to provide only a tankful of hot water , is there scope for running pipes to the bathroom along the left wall and in doing so create a very useful thing for my bathroom whilst also fulfilling the need for a heat sink . otherwise id have to have one of the existing 4 rads on . If its not poss then so be it and i ll just have to have one of the existing four rads on but if i can do this i d like to do so . All the trunking that hides pipes in the bathroom has been ripped out whilst looking for the cause of my water filled cabin bilge so access is no prob and theyre selling towel rails 1/2 price in screwfix for £30 just now . Any thoughts welcome as to this idea , cheers folks

[steelaway]

just one more thing . The idea of a heated towel rail is an appealing one . quite posh i think ... ive never owned a heated towel rail !! All my rads are down the right hand side of the boat if you are facing the bow . My bathroom is on the left hand side of the boat so the wall on which a towel rail might be fixed is a boat widths distance away from the radiator pipes .

Supposing its poss to isolate the rads from the calorifier to provide only a tankful of hot water , is there scope for running pipes to the bathroom along the left wall and in doing so create a very useful thing for my bathroom whilst also fulfilling the need for a heat sink . otherwise id have to have one of the existing 4 rads on . If its not poss then so be it and i ll just have to have one of the existing four rads on but if i can do this i d like to do so . All the trunking that hides pipes in the bathroom has been ripped out whilst looking for the cause of my water filled cabin bilge so access is no prob and theyre selling towel rails 1/2 price in screwfix for £30 just now . Any thoughts welcome as to this idea , cheers folks

 

Towel rails are very over rated as a heater, they are only just good enough for drying towels!

if you check the BTU output from a standard radiator you'll find you will need a towel rad at least twice the size of a standard radiator!

 

Alex

[BlueStringPudding]

just one more thing . The idea of a heated towel rail is an appealing one . quite posh i think ... ive never owned a heated towel rail !! All my rads are down the right hand side of the boat if you are facing the bow . My bathroom is on the left hand side of the boat so the wall on which a towel rail might be fixed is a boat widths distance away from the radiator pipes .

Supposing its poss to isolate the rads from the calorifier to provide only a tankful of hot water , is there scope for running pipes to the bathroom along the left wall and in doing so create a very useful thing for my bathroom whilst also fulfilling the need for a heat sink . otherwise id have to have one of the existing 4 rads on . If its not poss then so be it and i ll just have to have one of the existing four rads on but if i can do this i d like to do so . All the trunking that hides pipes in the bathroom has been ripped out whilst looking for the cause of my water filled cabin bilge so access is no prob and theyre selling towel rails 1/2 price in screwfix for £30 just now . Any thoughts welcome as to this idea , cheers folks

 

Depending on how the radiators are linked, if one of them is the return then you may have to have that one turned on anyhoo. With my set up the front most radiator has to be left on for that reason.

In which case attach a rail to the underside of the gunnel above that radiator to hang your towels on - that's what Black Prince hireboats did and may well still do.

Edited January 28, 2014 by BlueStringPudding

[chubby]

cheers guys . plumbing seems far too complicated to me .... but it isn t . for some reason my head cannot do not come to terms with .

Have i got this right as this is how its set up as far as i can tell . all my pipes are boxed in and of course done in such a way as to prevent future access by later owners .

this is my set up :

HOT OUT from ebers . This is T,d . one side to coil . one side is " flow "(?) TO rads . This exits the calorifier cupboard & out to 4 rads . nearest is bedroom furthest is front room .

The RETURN feed comes back into the cupboard . Pipes come out of calorifier & is T'd into the return pipe which then goes thru bulkhead to ebers in the engine room .

Sorry if ive written this in a super simplistic way but technical stuff just goes over my head and i have to think in an almost childish way with everything just explained as basically as possible .

Ive apoarently got to " bleed " radiators and even the eberspacher at some point , which a mate who cannot get here tells me is a doddle but again to me its far from it . When ive done it once i may able reflect that yes , actually it was simple but for now its just another plumbing nitemare that causes worry .

Anyway - If this plumbing set up makes sense and is as it ought to be i shall fire this bitch up and see what happens .

OR , should i take thing out , do the service ( following the utube vid i don t foresee any probs doing this ) and then fire it up .

Sorry folks for such possibly annoying questions but paying someone isn t poss . if i could afford it id just save myself the worry so all help is appreciated , cheers

 

edit to add - the return pipes from coil & rads to the ebers is T 'd with a now full header tank of coolant . cheers

Edited January 29, 2014 by chubby

[OldGoat]

For what it's worth -

A properly installed heating system should be "a two pipe system", where the flow and return pipes run the length of the boat and the radiators are "t-eed" off the two pipes separately (like batteries in parallel) Any radiator can be turned off without affecting the others.

 

Cheaply fitted systems have one pipe running the length of the boat and the radiators are joined together in series. Turn one off and they're all off (there have been threads on here where a one-pipe system was installed.

 

It would be messy to add towel-rail-radiator to a single pipe system, but easier on a two pipe. Can you not run the pipes under the floor? A descent installation should have inspection hatches at each rad: plastic pipes are easy to poke through under the floor - if there ar no obstructions.

 

 

[chubby]

cheers old goat

 

there are definately two pipes . This much i can see . to me this suggests its is the better of the two ways of doing it . One pipe goes out to rads , one pipe returns to eberspacher .

Having filled the header tank should i turn the knobs on the right hand side of the rads to fully open ? half open ? before firing up the eberpacher ?

The towel rail thought is dead in the water now . i don t need it really . First i need to ensre i get this thing working before turning my attention to configuring the system so that i can isolate 3 of 4 rads and use the eber to be primarily for hot water .

This is doing my 'ed in !!

cheers again

[BlueBelle1]

Thanks so much for this topic/post x

[chubby]

My pleasure !!!

 

things have got alot worse . i m down to my last tea bag & its hammering with rain outside .

cheers

[Captain Fizz]

Now that is bad planning!!

Open the radiator valves fully whilst refilling. You can always tweet them later to balance the system.

I would be inclined to service the eber first so that you don't need to drain down twice.

[pquinn]

when i came back to the boat after Christmas the eber was making a lot of smoke and cut out once or twice but came back to normal after about four runs [thankfully as i was about to remove it and have a look at the filter] i have put it down to a bit of water in the fuel or possibly because it was so windy over christmas a build up of spray being blown in to the exhaust.

after eight years i never actually noticed untill my wife pointed out the other evening that the rad in the bathroom does not turn off as we allways left it at least slightly on even in summer for the warming /drying of towels. paul

[chubby]

cheers again folks . A mate has texted the same thing about opening all the rads and this is now done . Though i m being somewhat gutless about all this as to whether to fire it up and see if it works or not i think i m going to bite the bullet and turn it on ....... soon .

i shall attempt to acquire some corks from neigbors in case i do have to take the unit out and then i shall check ebay for the gaskets & glow plug if necessary . There used to be a chap on ebay who serviced these units by post but i can t find him now .

Anyway onwards !! ...... soon . Cup of tea first ... the last teabag