Webasto surgery and upgrades

A warning - this is only for the serious heating system addicts, folks with little going on in their lives or people who cannot sleep at the dead of night.

Still reading? Sad sort of life, isn't it....

So, we reported previously that the big Webasto water heater was getting some overhaul surgery courtesy of Boatcraft in Ardrossan. Robert and Donald seem to know about the kit in a way that the one man at Osmotech in Hamble Point can only dream about. They also do what they say they would do unlike the Keto man, Toby, who struggles to even answer emails.  Sad how the marine industry allows stuff like that to happen.

OK, rant over. We duly had a new heat exchanger (rusted and worn) and a burner tube (had a split in it, hence the strange combustion noises) fitted to the BIG water heater. It gets some serious autumn, winter, spring use of course - for the last 6 years it has been on pretty much every day during the winter for varying lengths of time. As this is the UK, it also gets some exercise during the summer too of course. Treating it to the new parts seemed fair. Here it is reassembled, reinstalled and working happily:

All you can really see is the silencer and slightly tatty lagging on the exhaust. the expensive new bit is hidden away at the back.

We also have a second Webasto water heater, a little 5Kw water heater that just runs matrix fans in the two heads compartments. It was installed so the original owner didn't have to fire up the full heating system to warm up the heads on chilly days (for non boaters, heads = toilet and shower areas). This little unit gets very very little use in reality and we just fire it up occasionally to make sure that all is well:

However, the Boatcraft folks said that you could plumb in a small heat exchanger like the ones used on coaches and get "instant" hot water to the taps and showers in the boat from it. That would be good for us. Currently a tank of hot water comes from either the 240v immersion heater (via shorepower or the generator) or it is heated when the main engine is running. That means we have to fire up the genset if at anchor or away from shorepower unless we've been cruising. The immersion heater takes some time to warm up the tank and if 4 of you want showers one after the other, then the tank needs to be very hot up front.

The heat exchanger approach means we can fire up the small heater and after a couple of minutes for it to warm through, get hot water until either the diesel runs out (unlikely as the main fuel tanks could supply the heater for about 11,000 hours at full power) or the water tanks run dry or the heater goes wrong. We try not to think about the latter of course. In the winter, when we are in a marina berth, this is very handy.  Heating water for showers if you cannot be bothered to go ashore and use their facilities needs a lot of electricity.  You pay inflated prices per unit for that too. The little Webasto heater uses about 0.5 litres per hour and when you buy diesel in bulk, it is way cheaper unless you really want that 11,000 hour shower.

Here is the heat exchanger fitted in next to the calorifier:

The Boatcraft guys did a proper job (no, not the Cornish beer) with tidy pipe runs and couplings and they were diligent in fully bleeding the system to make sure that all was well. Very happy with what they did for us and charged -  labour rates are a little less than in the Solent area and their skill level is way higher too.

End result -  a dent to the bank account, main heating system ready for the next few years, we hope and "instant" hot water available.  Happy to have found Donald and Robert!