| Author |
Message |
Christopher Goodwin (Cgoodwin)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 2:34 pm: | |
My Neoplan was fitted with a webasto heater originally, I tracked down a pervious owner and he had the unit and gave it to me. I have been looking into installing it because the bus is also fitted with rediators running along the baseboards and though I could just use the webasto for heat when parked as well as acting as a block heater for cold starts. At this same point I am installing the plumbing and thought, why not use a single 10 gallon propane/electric water heater for the house hot water and run this through a heat exchanger so that when parked a pump could circulate engine coolant through the radiators and block and heat exchanger which would be heated by the propane/electric water heater using an additional pump to circuilate this. SO when parked and connected to shore power, the heater would run electric and the pumps would run to circulate everything keeping the block warm and the interior heated. When boondocking the heater would run on propane and the pumps on the battery bank, again heating both the block and the interior as well as having hot water at the ready.
Has anyone tried this???
I also noticed that Atwood has a 10gal ele/prop unit with an integral heat exchanger designed to heat the water tank with engine coolant while running, with a small pump this could be used to function as a block heater as well...
Any thoughts? |
Jim Stewart (H3jim)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 2:52 pm: | |
All that works well, except the small hot water heater will not put out the BTU's you need to heat the coach. It would seem that you need around 40,000 btu to heat a coach and to have some for reserve capacity.
Also, the hot water heater does not heat your coolant directly, but it heats the potable hot water that's in the heater. So your hot water heater would be acting as a heat exchanger with associated efficientcy losses.
I think you still need the webasto hooked up in the system somewhere. |
david anderson (Davidanderson)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 3:03 pm: | |
It probably could be done. My Seaward water heater is electric or Webasto heated. As far as heating my block with the electric heater on and the webasto pump circulating (with furnace off), I did that once in an RV park in Granby CO, but I had to run the pump overnite to get just enough heat exchange to warm the block up to start.
My water heater was not designed to produce enough heat to do that, but I wanted to try just to see. It takes a lot of KW to heat the water, flow through the lines, flow through the engine heat exchanger, then through the engine to be really effective. An electric block heater would be better because it's right in the block.
Dick Wright at Wrico probably has something that would do the job, but I believe an electric block heater would be more efficient. I think they are only about $60. You could use the propane when boondocking and the electric block heater when on the power pole.
Good luck
David Anderson
1985 Eagle 10 |
Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 3:23 pm: | |
Install the Webasto!!!! It does a great job of heating the coach. Find a water heater that has provision for a heat exchanger and use the Webasto to heat the water also. Plumb the engine coolant thru the Webasto, and you have the best of all worlds. Ability to preheat the engine, unlimited hot water and a toasty coach regardless of the outside temperature. Mine was like this and it worked great.
Richard |
Wayne Newland
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 18, 2005 - 7:13 pm: | |
My 75 GMC Palm Beach has a heat exchanger off the engine for the water heater. The water gets very hot. Several GMC'ERS have put in a heat exchanger in the hose line for free heat in the living area.
Wayne Newland F9300 Columbia, Md (ex-Flxible) |
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