Heater kaput

[andyfish]

How do,during our recent trip the eberspacher D2 heater on the boat packed in

It would go through its normal starting procedure then cough up and smoke very badly before shutting down,when i took the heater off to bring home i noticed the exhaust was very badly sooted up,any ideas if this could be the cause

Andy

[Guest]

Absolutely it will need a decoke and then run it only on full or off afterwards to prevent it happening again. The ebers do not like to run on medium or low and will coke up.

Jonathan

[pks1702]

Seems to have been a bit of a running theme over the Christmas/New Year break.

David (Antares_9) is the undeniable voice of experience here and I am sure will be along soon.

From my own experience (and my father in law who has a life time in truck fleets) Red Diesel Sulphur content can be seen as a cause. Most issues I have seen have been related to coking/sooting of the burner unit related potentially to the Sulphur issue. Things can go wrong when your boat gets hot and the Weberspacher is turned to a low setting. JPC advised me years ago to run mine at full 'chat' and if we got hot open a window. This evidently is the best way of keeping the burner unit soot free although eventually they all seem to succumb (well those run on Red Diesel)

Sometimes if there are issues with starting the Glow Plug can become Diesel soaked and hinder starting but David has a unique (as far as I am aware) solution to this which works time and again although Rachel will I am sure be now expecting a new domestic appliance

[pks1702]

Mmmm potential partial Lake Sailor to Jonathan methinks

[C.Ricko]

dont get these problems with a woodburner, but Perry, if you are ever moored near me on a cold night and get too hot in your boat just be careful which window you open

[Guest]

Hi ya,

same thing happend to my D2 on our S28. Panks advised the same. No problemo since. We were on the new boat (F33) all last week and run the D4 with no probs until I set the stats on low overnight, and guess what? white smoke and shutdown. Luckily after a couple of unsuccessfull fire ups, it did go again. Once again, running at full powerno probs other with the cold snap, it has gulped a huge amount of fuel.

We have found it better/cheaper to have a couple of electric fan heaters, and inspite of the recent extreme weather, they actually coped really well with the D$ off all night!).

One was a real cheapie from b@Q and the other a very neat ceramic fan (also from B@Q) was superb in our bedroom (the D4 has a cold spot in this room).

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?a ... earch=true

Check it out...its a bargain, extremely compact and a shape that allows us to sit it on a small step in the bedroom.

Best of all, it doesnt give that awful dry heat that you often get with normal fan heaters.

adam...

[Antares_9]

Easy enough to decoke yourself Dave, there is a link to PDF of heater manuals in the tech area here. You will need new gaskets. It's a messy job but will usually cure smoking and flame out or fail to start issues, giving the burner tube a soak in caustic will help as scraping at them too much can cause damage. As has been said running on low power and high sulphur content in red diesel doesn't help at all.

[pks1702]

C.Ricko Said

dont get these problems with a woodburner, but Perry, if you are ever moored near me on a cold night and get too hot in your boat just be careful which window you open

[andyfish]

Thanks for your advice everyone,going to attempt it or will send it into my mate Ian mellor at mellor auto electricians to sort,cant beat an expert

All the best

Andy

[petersjoy]

my mate Ian mellor at mellor auto electricians to sort,cant beat an expert

Found out he's 50yds round corner from me.

All i can say is get a Mikuni, ran mine on low for the 3days i was on boat with a blast on high to shut down. No problems at all.

[Mowjo]

Cor! the more I read about heaters on boats, the more I think I'll stick with my 15tog Duvet and big woolie jumper, I wanted to fit heating on my boat, but the Mrs said Nah! i'll just put the kettle on it'll soon warm up in here,,

[senator]

If you have a big LPG bottle buy Propex.

Seriously though for a system costing over a grand, having a sole purpose of heating a boat I would think both eba and webo should spend more time in the pages of trading standards news letter than any boating review magazine.

It realy can't be that difficult to make a heater for a boat that works in the cold.

Ian

[Guest chriscraft]

If you have a big LPG bottle buy Propex.

HS2000

HS2800

Average consumption

142 grams/hour

225 grams/hour

3.9kg propane cylinder

27.5 hours

17.5 hours

4.5kg butane

31.7 hours

20.0 hours

13kg propane

91.5 hours

58.0 hours

15kg butane

105.6 hours

67.0 hours

19kg butane

133.8 hours

84.5 hours

47kg butane

331.0 hours

209.0 hours

904 Camping gaz (1.81kg)

12.75 hours

8.0 hours

907 Camping gaz (2.72kg)

19.0 hours

12.0 hours

i don,t think propex uses all that much,these figures are for continuous use,the units come with a thermostat so shut down when the boat,s toasty,so you,ll get longer out of your bottle than this/?

[mbird]

If you have a big LPG bottle buy Propex.

I agree entirely Trevor, and fitted 2 units to TB for less than £1k. The gas lasted ages too, but in the new boat I don;t think the little Camping Gaz bottles would cope too well

[senator]

They don't Mark unfortunately. had the same on White Lady with Propex, heating was fantastic but gas bottles were not big enough.

The more I hear of diesel heating the more I consider fitting a gas locker that will take a bigger bottle.

Ian

[mbird]

The more I hear of diesel heating the more I consider fitting a gas locker that will take a bigger bottle.

Ian

I was wondering that too; whether I could get something sorted to use the lazarette locker for gas. The problem is I think it is too low so the drain would be below the water line, which wouldn't be a good idea!

[Antares_9]

The more I hear of diesel heating the more I consider fitting a gas locker that will take a bigger bottle.

Ian

If you're going to that trouble you might as well fit a tank and run on ULSD or paraffin Ian. As I have said on here before I have considered fitting a separate tank on a number of occasions as I've been convinced red is the root of most ongoing unreliability issues for some time. But it's really inertia that prevents me and I suspect most people doing that. When you're carrying several hundred litres of diesel around already it's something you have to really want to do. Petrol boats are another matter, especially little outboard powered ones as then the decision is not your own and you have no choice at all other than gas or a separate tank. Even fitting a petrol Webo / Ebo is out of the question as they are not certified by the manufacturer for use on boats, so even if you are coastal and don't have to worry about BSS then your insurer would take a dim view if anything went tits up.

[Antares_9]

Just got back from LIBS and because we had the place almost to ourselves was able to have a most interesting and lengthy discussion with the Webasto design engineers. I have mentioned in previous posts that the CO level needs to be set correctly as most heaters come set for running on ULSD and therefore are at the higher end of the specified setting. Well it turns out that that is not only desirable but ABSOLUTELY VITAL if running on red. They say categorically that if the CO levels are set correctly then there will be no coking issues at all. They have had many problems with coking on units run on red and almost exclusively the furnaces have been found to effectively be running rich and after cleaning or fitting a new burner and setting the levels up correctly the problem magically went away.

[Guest chriscraft]

hi,

that means you.ll need a gas analizer,to set the combustion up,on comercial boilers you aim to get as near to zero co as possible,if there is a lot of co in the exhaust it means that you have incomplete combustion,and are wasting fuel,and polluting the atmosphere,and sooting up your burner,will have to investigate how to set on of these up,out of intrest.

[Antares_9]

Dead simple if you have an exhaust gas analyser, I have posted how to do it before but though I realised it was important, didn’t realise just HOW important. As few people have access to the analyser it is probably simpler just to get the local agent to set it up every three or four years.

[Guest chriscraft]

Yes i agree ,my analiyser is about 750 pounds to buy,and 110 pounds per year to calibrate,so 2 hours labour or so seems like a good deal!

[andyfish]

Heater sorted now,new burner fitted as old one was should we say knackered,badly coked up but also distorted!

not the cheapest fix but should good for a year or two now!

Andy