Eberspacher engineer east London

[Doubleh]

Apologies if this has already been covered but a search has turned up nothing.

 

Can anyone recommend a competent engineer to look at an eberspacher heater (hydronic d5) in East London area (limehouse)?

 

I used to service the Webasto on our old boat, and have done the obvious on the eberspacher ie changed gaskets, burner screen and o rings, de-coked burner and cleaned fuel filter, but am still struggling to get it to work. When it does start up it runs for approx 40 mins before it starts making a horrible grinding noise and I shut it down. It then needs to be bled through the bleed screw before I can run it smoothly again so seems to be some problem losing coolant.

 

I had thought water could be escaping from heat exchanger but replacing exchanger I rings hasn't helped. The heating circuit is also used by a rayburn with expansion tank and circulation pump so I don't think there should be air trapped in circuit.

 

I'm aware of places you can remove the unit and post it in to them, but there is also a problem with diesel smell in the cabin after running and elevated level of CO showing on the detector (not enough to cause an alarm condition) so I'd like to have someone actually check over the installation and exhaust setup.

 

Any recommendations much appreciated

[smileypete]

You could try sending a PM to 'NMEA'. Don't think he normally deals with them but might know someone who does, or at least check it out for you.

 

Something you could try if you're confident working with them, is to take it out and run it 'on the bench' with a large bucket of water, may help narrow things down.

 

The diesel smell and CO sounds like the exhaust is 'blowing' from a small gap or perforation somewhere. If you block the inlet and put a smoke match in the outlet, then blow some air in, it may show up any leaks.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

Edited October 6, 2014 by smileypete

[Lady Muck]

Dean at DW Marine in Harlow does them I think, but you'll have to pay travelling time. http://www.forkliftsharlow.co.uk/

[Doubleh]

Thanks for the input both and sorry for not responding sooner. Given that there doesn't seem to be anyone obviously to hand without paying travelling time I took a last look at it myself before biting the bullet.

 

I thought the problem couldn't be air locks but over the last week or so I completely drained the system and refilled it using an antifreeze/inhibitor solution so that we can leave it commissioned when away over winter. This certainly did create air locks, and I bled them out from the towel rail. On retrying the eberspacher I found it now works fine, so I guess the problem must have been due to air in the system collecting in the heat exchanger. The smell of diesel has also largely dissipated so I'm hoping it was from spilt fuel being burned off the heater. I put a co alarm with a ppm read out into the bedroom just the other side of the bulkhead from the heater and it's showing no sign of fumes.

 

The heater is now coming on faultlessly to the timer in the morning, and we wake up to a warm bedroom and hot towels. I know these pieces of kit get a bad rap, but right now I'm loving it. I think most of the problems come from using them for something they were never designed for ie 24/7 heating. For a quick burst to take of the chill they can be great.

[NMEA]

The symptoms you describe are highly indicative of air accumulating in the heat exchanger, i,e. gurgling from the pump and shutting down because the OH sensor detects to high a temperature as there is insufficient coolant to carry away the heat. In some poorly designed systems with headers it is a recurring problem which is invariably cured by changing over to pressurised and installing a spiro vent in the outlet hose from the heater.