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Alde boiler just for heating water


aracer

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I've got an older Alde Comfort (2920 I think) which is currently set up to circulate water through the calorifier and the radiators. I can turn off the living room and bathroom radiators but that still leaves the corridor/main bedroom rad and a fin rad under the bottom bunk in the second cabin which don't have bypasses or valves. However there appear to be valves under a cupboard which disconnect the radiator circuit leaving water circulating just through the calorifier.

 

The question is, is it a problem to have my Alde just providing hot water? I've seen comments on threads about diesel water heaters suggesting you should have at least one radiator in circuit, but not sure if the same issue of cycling applies to an Alde (though if it does I could presumably just turn it off when it starts cycling, as suggested on those threads).

 

I know it seems a strange question for this time of year, but I usually get all the heating I need from the stove, and have also just realised I could use the fanheater to use up the prepaid electricity before I move moorings. Would like to have hot water without burning too much gas given the way Calor prices are going.

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11 minutes ago, aracer said:

The question is, is it a problem to have my Alde just providing hot water?

 

No. The Alde doesn't know or care.

 

 

11 minutes ago, aracer said:

I've seen comments on threads about diesel water heaters suggesting you should have at least one radiator in circuit, but not sure if the same issue of cycling applies to an Alde

 

No. The gas burner in the Alde is not subject to the sooting problems of a diesel burner.

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15 minutes ago, aracer said:

I know it seems a strange question for this time of year, but I usually get all the heating I need from the stove, and have also just realised I could use the fanheater to use up the prepaid electricity before I move moorings. Would like to have hot water without burning too much gas given the way Calor prices are going.

You don't have an immersion heater in the calorifier then? That would see off the units remaining and give you hot water.

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10 minutes ago, philjw said:

You don't have an immersion heater in the calorifier then? That would see off the units remaining and give you hot water.

No, unfortunately not. I had been wondering about whether it would be possible to add one, which might be my next question...

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22 minutes ago, aracer said:

No, unfortunately not. I had been wondering about whether it would be possible to add one, which might be my next question...

I don't have one either but the boss where one could be fitted is there. You might have to look for it depending on which way the calorifier is fitted e.g it could be at the bottom of a horizontal calorifier.  Think about a way to prevent the inverter from powering the immersion to save your batteries if it is switched on when you are not plugged in to shore power.

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5 minutes ago, philjw said:

Think about a way to prevent the inverter from powering the immersion to save your batteries if it is switched on when you are not plugged in to shore power.

That's fairly straightforward given my wiring - I have separate circuit breakers for shoreline and inverter so could take the feed direct from the shoreline circuit breaker before the switch, in the same way the feed for the battery charger comes straight from there. But then electrics are something I'm fairly competent at.

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The Alde is a bit unusual. It contains a tank of water and the burner turns on and off to keep that tank of water at the required temperature.

 

Thermostats and the Alde pump can then circulate that water to radiators or a calorifier, but the burner itself does not care....it just has to keep the internal water tank hot.

 

Its a neat and reliable device. Maybe once we have to move to white diesel it might even come back into fashion ?

 

.........Dave

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19 minutes ago, dmr said:

Its a neat and reliable device.

 

And a complete shitbag to service!

 

 

20 minutes ago, dmr said:

Maybe once we have to move to white diesel it might even come back into fashion ?

 

I have in mind a therm of Calor gas costs about five times the price of a therm of red diesel. So still three times the price of white diesel, very roughly.

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25 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

And a complete shitbag to service!

 

 

 

I have in mind a therm of Calor gas costs about five times the price of a therm of red diesel. So still three times the price of white diesel, very roughly.

Yes, putting the works right at the bottom, and in a device that is often installed in a corridor, does not make access easy.

 

Its strange that as a nation we now use gas quite a lot in electricity generation, but can't supply it in bottles at a reasonable price. Flogas was going to challenge the Calor monopoly, but last time I looked their prices were very similar.

 

...........Dave 

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2 minutes ago, dmr said:

Yes, putting the works right at the bottom, and in a device that is often installed in a corridor, does not make access easy.

 

 

And the need to remove 18 screws, (yes EIGHTEEN, I counted them!) tiny self-tapping screws down at floor level to get the burner assembly out. 

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9 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

And the need to remove 18 screws, (yes EIGHTEEN, I counted them!) tiny self-tapping screws down at floor level to get the burner assembly out. 

And, in my case, to first remove part of the timber framing of the surrounding cupboard before I could get a screwdriver to some of those 18 screws.

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Here is a funny thing. I have had the burner out of my Alde a couple of times and it never occurred to me that it was in any way difficult. Somewhat fiddly maybe but about par for the course with so much modern stuff.  However I did install it myself so made sure that I have access to all the screws, being very old school motor mechanic I am used to working on the floor and I d have a good selection of screwdrivers so I suppose the degree to which you find it difficult  depends upon the installation and past experience.

 

I would much rather face stripping the Alde than the Wabastos we had on the hire fleet in the 60s & 70s. Th Alde is far simpler and less fiddly.

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Slightly off topic. We have a new cube shaped Alde gas boiler (3020) and that doesn't mind cycling either. In the summer we turn off all the radiators and use the boiler to just heat the calorifier. The manual states that it doesn't ever need servicing, we,ve had it two years and so far that has proved correct. Another feature I like is that you can use 3kw of shore power to run it if you want. Handy if you are on a daily rate or an unmetered supply.

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one thing to remember with the upright aldes (29xx I think) is that the pilot light on them is quite thirsty

when using ours for heating & hot water we will go through a bottle of gas every 8 days (thats with turning heating off overnight but not putting the pilot light out)

if we kill the pilot light overnight we gain an extra day (or day & 1/2) from the gas bottle

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We have one of the Aldi slimline boiler with a inverter tap/ valve and just use the clarifier for hot water summer and both winter time.

It would be good to have a 3 way valve so in the winter when we pop up for the day we can have just the heating on and no hot water.

so

1. hot water and heating

2. hot water only 

and

3. heating only.

In winter when we stay on the boat if we have the heating running 24/7 and cooking a gas bottles last about 4 or 5 days.

 

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look in the back of cupboards close to the boiler, our has shutoff valves in one that disconnects the radiators (apart from bathroom) or the calorifier (no matter how the valves are set the bathroom radiator stays on

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2 hours ago, Jess-- said:

if you only have one valve for the rads you will probably find that if you turn the bathroom radiator off it also turns the calorifier off

 

just make sure you don't have both turned off at the same time

On the upright Alde it should not matter because the burner is controlled by the boiler stat, not the room stat so if you did turn both of the boiler will come up to temperature and then the burner will turn off.

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3 hours ago, Jess-- said:

look in the back of cupboards close to the boiler, our has shutoff valves in one that disconnects the radiators (apart from bathroom) or the calorifier (no matter how the valves are set the bathroom radiator stays on

Same set-up as mine, but the bathroom radiator can be turned off by its own valve.

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I was just going to say what Tony / #22 says.  I've spent many a happy hour with fuses and test meter trying to work out why the damn thing would not fire up before I realised that the room stat was turned down. 

 

Like wise, what David / #12 says.  I have to remove a cupboard door and originally cut through a timber frame before I could undo the boiler unit screws.  Well worth the effort, however.  I removed loads of cr@p from the bottom of the air intake and around the pilot and burner jets which improved lighting and burning no end.

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