Free Heat..?

[ZimbiIV]

The only thing I know about free is that it usually costs alot of pennies.

paul

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, dnks34 said:

Ricardo ive just re read your last 2 posts again and quite frankly I take offence at the way you have insinuated that I was implying not using the correct or proper marine intended parts isnt doing a proper job, that is not what I was suggesting at all. 

 

 

 

And yet you don't mind using the words" cobbled together " that in itself implies a poor and badly thought out creation , then again there are those of us that can and do manufacture a reliable component and remember as I said mine has works perfectly for the last 7 yrs   it doesn't matter one jot if its a manufactured part or a scratch built one install it wrongly and it will cause a problem , the trick is to know what you are doing and thankfully for me I do .

[dnks34]

As I said on a broads based boat i would agree with you but on a boat i might be intending to go to sea with and worth £££k i dont think I would be worrying about skimping on a heater matrix.  Cobbled together is all day long for my boat and thats why its still floating!

[grendel]

at some point in its creation any device must of necessity have gone through a cobbling together, the initial designs thought through by the designers were made and cobbled from parts, until they worked, then the parts were specially manufactured and refined (and priced accordingly - then labeled 'marine' and doubled in price).

true advancement in any field is done by those who cobble different things together and try them out, just to see if they work, pull them to bits again and try again until they are perfect. then they market them.

my greatest respect goes to all those cobblers together in this world - after all someone cobbled together the first computers, and look where we are today.

[grendel]

Besides, Knowing Robin, I wouldnt put anything past him, he will work out what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, and it will be done his way, regardless of whether that is the conventional way or not, Robin is another of lifes out of the box thinkers, I am sure if there is a better way of doing something - Robin will be the one that finds it.

[grendel]

I was cogitating on this as I was soaking in the bath just now (shock Horror - no - not having a bath! I hear you cry), the title was 'free heat' so cheap or free options can be entertained I think.

I was also thinking, and wondering, my mind wandered along many tracks - all options - I thought - now I wonder if you can buy carpeting that has some kind of heating element built in (I know you can get heat pads for animals, and electric blankets) now suppose you can get this carpet in 12V heater elements, this would effectively run off the batteries, but - while the engine is running, the electricity is free. this while not underfloor heating would at least be underfoot heating.

another alternative - used for heating work stations in large cold factories, infra red heaters, they heat the person - not the air, a couple of these strategically placed would keep the crew warm - once again powered by the engine electrics.

I would imagine that the engine room itself will be quite warm while they are running - will this heat transfer up through the deck to the interior cockpit?

[dnks34]

Shortly after we got our boat i looked into installing a matrix unit to serve as a demister with a hot air duct going to both of our helm positions. I am normally good at passing cabling through inaccesible places and keeping things hidden but in this case there was just nowhere to hide the hot air ducting. 

With the boat stripped out and no headlining in place it would have been easy but as I didnt want to go that far I had to give up on it and I think I spent the money on some electrical gizmo instead! 

[LondonRascal]

The funny thing is this whole set is going to be needed very occasionally - maybe even as little as once. I say this because once I get a dedicated diesel based heating system installed, I can use this as a far cheaper method of making heat when away from shore power than running a 13.5Kw generator to make electricity to run other forms of heating - be it electric fan heaters or the reverse cycle conditioning system.

Despite the fact this is not going to be something that may be used much, I want it to be cosmetically nice and should I sell the boat any new purchaser can see it is 'marine grade' and feel confident in its installation. I feel that is better than me having to explain that under the seat is a Volvo heater matrix and a Ford Transit three speed blower for example - there really is no difference in performance, but it does not 'sound as good' as saying this is a Marine system made by Mikuni.

Having read up on things a little more, the only issue I can see is the fact the matrix is going to have to be in the saloon and I can fit it perfectly under a seat, behind an existing grill used to hid one of the air handlers for the Aircon system. The problem is this puts the heater matrix about 3 feet above the engine's expansion tank for coolant return. This in turn will mean when I add more coolant to account for the extra volume of the matrix and associated pipe work all will be ok - it will even be ok as the volume of liquid expands under heat load, with any excess going into the expansion tank - the issue will be when the engine is off and the system returns to ambient air temperature - it has no way to flow back into the engines header tank from the expansion tank thus meaning coolant tank on the engine will be under filled.

The solution, I have read, is to have a secondary header tank - but that needs to be slightly above the level of the highest point of the system - and that cannot happen in the set up I wish. If I put the Matrix down below in the engine room and from this have some air ducting into the Saloon that is going to be a couple of 50mm holes I need to make somewhere through the engine room sound insinuation which is about 2" thick and solid cored. This also causes the ships engine room to no longer be considered sealed  from the rest of the accommodation. Let us say there was a fire which melted the ducting or even spread up it, either way smoke will rise through the ducting to the accommodation above and therefore this is why I am not able to  use any ducting.

Now in reality I could of course use such air ducting.  I could say what are the chances of a fire and so on and so forth, but again in so doing I change the the integrity of something and a prospective new owner down the line will be well aware of this, especially when a Surveyor looks at the set up from the engine room up. When you are dealing with a boat that is category A offshore rated as she is, she will have systems that cover her being 'largely self sufficient'  it changes a number of things not least is the fact you will likely need to deal with situations well away from shore based help and in the event of an emergency extra time means a great deal, so  when you begin to modify the design in ways which may effect the boat or cause a future purchaser ho is attracted to the rugged nature of the boat from her systems from the remote emergency fuel cut offs, air intake shut offs to the engine room and fire suppression systems they may well get put off seeing some plastic ducting heading up to the saloon from the  engine room. 

So it is all a bit different to a river boat and I have to be mindful of this with everything I do and plan.

[Siddy]

Following on from Grendel and heat from the engine there is the heat exchage system, we transfer heat via heat wheels in ducting etc but I've got a Dimplex system in my files as a option for the house here but you need a sealed system where the heat is transferred across to the cabin air, no fumes, smells and still maintain fire seals.

Check this option 1st one I found.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAHRU150-Passive-Heat-Recovery-Unit-Low-Cost-Whole-House-Ventilation/390560499379?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D37e01eb758c54a179c432ae2567f9857%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D25%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D111596766471&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598

Easy temp/portable option 2kw oil heater.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

The funny thing is this whole set is going to be needed very occasionally - maybe even as little as once. I say this because once I get a dedicated diesel based heating system installed, I can use this as a far cheaper method of making heat when away from shore power than running a 13.5Kw generator to make electricity to run other forms of heating - be it electric fan heaters or the reverse cycle conditioning system.

Despite the fact this is not going to be something that may be used much, I want it to be cosmetically nice and should I sell the boat any new purchaser can see it is 'marine grade' and feel confident in its installation. I feel that is better than me having to explain that under the seat is a Volvo heater matrix and a Ford Transit three speed blower for example - there really is no difference in performance, but it does not 'sound as good' as saying this is a Marine system made by Mikuni.

Having read up on things a little more, the only issue I can see is the fact the matrix is going to have to be in the saloon and I can fit it perfectly under a seat, behind an existing grill used to hid one of the air handlers for the Aircon system. The problem is this puts the heater matrix about 3 feet above the engine's expansion tank for coolant return. This in turn will mean when I add more coolant to account for the extra volume of the matrix and associated pipe work all will be ok - it will even be ok as the volume of liquid expands under heat load, with any excess going into the expansion tank - the issue will be when the engine is off and the system returns to ambient air temperature - it has no way to flow back into the engines header tank from the expansion tank thus meaning coolant tank on the engine will be under filled.

The solution, I have read, is to have a secondary header tank - but that needs to be slightly above the level of the highest point of the system - and that cannot happen in the set up I wish. If I put the Matrix down below in the engine room and from this have some air ducting into the Saloon that is going to be a couple of 50mm holes I need to make somewhere through the engine room sound insinuation which is about 2" thick and solid cored. This also causes the ships engine room to no longer be considered sealed  from the rest of the accommodation. Let us say there was a fire which melted the ducting or even spread up it, either way smoke will rise through the ducting to the accommodation above and therefore this is why I am not able to  use any ducting.

Now in reality I could of course use such air ducting.  I could say what are the chances of a fire and so on and so forth, but again in so doing I change the the integrity of something and a prospective new owner down the line will be well aware of this, especially when a Surveyor looks at the set up from the engine room up. When you are dealing with a boat that is category A offshore rated as she is, she will have systems that cover her being 'largely self sufficient'  it changes a number of things not least is the fact you will likely need to deal with situations well away from shore based help and in the event of an emergency extra time means a great deal, so  when you begin to modify the design in ways which may effect the boat or cause a future purchaser ho is attracted to the rugged nature of the boat from her systems from the remote emergency fuel cut offs, air intake shut offs to the engine room and fire suppression systems they may well get put off seeing some plastic ducting heading up to the saloon from the  engine room. 

So it is all a bit different to a river boat and I have to be mindful of this with everything I do and plan.

Given what yiu have said I strongly suggest that you completely forget about a matrix heater as 3 feet above the header tank is really pushing your luck for all the reasons you outline , and then there's the problem of will a prospective buyer be put off by it to say nothing of a surveyor worrying over the installation , I'm pretty sure it has been done however on cat A boats but that done in manufacturing and probably not retro fitted , therefore I would say having experience of installing such systems if its vital that the engine room is not compromised in any way at all then its best to forget a matrix heater .

[BroadAmbition]

I have had this thought of free heat and a matrix system for 'B.A' on the back burner for an age now.  This thread has brought it to the fore once again.  What stopped me before was that it was a low priority upgrade and the issue of a second header tank trying to avoid airlocks and the like.  However what has really got me thinking is the link that dnks34 posted up (Thanks - your fault - yet more open wallet surgery) the AlizeD matrix would be ideal for 'B.A' and heating the wheelhouse when underway.  I can easily mount the matrix system underfloor in the engine room, keeping the matrix below the height of the current plumbing for the calorifier thereby avoiding any air locks in the cooling system.  Wiring it up is no problem as it is 12v for the fan, then a simple matter of fitting two lengths of pipe ducting (Insulated of course) to a couple of Mikuni outlets and Robert is your Dads Brother.  I had better put it on our upgrade list then.

Capt Kev  -  With all this talk of heating a boat, I assume your salty boat is the same as B.A on the Broads at Christmas. Once the heating goes off, heat retention is non existent and it ends up being "Bloody Cold".

Not so at all Capt Kev.  Our Biodegradables are far better at retaining heat and having less condensation that the tupperware cousins. Besides, 'B.A's hull in all cabins is insulated as are all the deckheads throughout apart from the canopy over the wheelhouse.  More importantly because of 'B.A's huge battery bank, during extremely cold weather we can and do leave the mikuni heating on overnight (Shock horror).  Due to my efforts at getting the diesel feed pump to operate silently and the silencer on the exhaust, the system is very quiet.  Only trouble is that you sometimes get tooooooooo hot overnight whilst slumbering!

Griff

[tjg1677]

In principle it is an excellent idea robin. Have done similar installations on narrowboats with great results except these systems ran off the solid fuel burner.

To run it off an engine should be no problem provided the matrix output does not exceed the heat energy that the engine can put into it but with a 6 cylinder engine i cant see that being a problem.

You will need a second header tank above the level of the matrix and a bleed vent fitted as close as poss to the matrix outlet. As long as the feed hose has a constant rise and the return a constant fall, then there will be no need for a circ pump.

Hope this helps and good luck with it.

Cheers

Trev

[Oddfellow]

I haven't time to read all suggestions here, so apologies if repeating something. 

The extension of the calorifier circuit is something that needs careful planning as the circulation system in most engines is designed for the engine and close apparatus only. Extending the circuit too much *MAY* inhibit cooling.

ALSO, be very well aware of the possibility of air-locks in the circuit and look to ways of minimising / eradicating them. 

[grendel]

8 hours ago, grendel said:

I was also thinking, and wondering, my mind wandered along many tracks - all options - I thought - now I wonder if you can buy carpeting that has some kind of heating element built in (I know you can get heat pads for animals, and electric blankets) now suppose you can get this carpet in 12V heater elements, this would effectively run off the batteries, but - while the engine is running, the electricity is free. this while not underfloor heating would at least be underfoot heating.

well there you go, my idea was not original, you can already get such a heating system - https://www.bewarmer.co.uk/rugbuddy-under-rug-heating/

I might even have to get one for my workshop to go under the cork section of flooring by the bench

[Springsong]

Hi Robin I come a bit late to the party. I am certainly no expert but these are the bits we used on SP although not the Dutch barge sized one. On recommendation from the agent who incidentally was a member on here we used the smallest heater and we had the integral water heating boiler as well , redundancy being the idea. Regrettably I cannot tell you how efficient it is as it is STILL not plumbed in, but that is another story.   

 

http://www.mikuniheating.com/HotWater_DutchBarge.cfm

 

 

http://www.mikuniheating.com/Results.cfm?category=27&secondary=15

[LondonRascal]

Thanks for the replies, advice and ideas.

This initially was to be a 'stop gap' measure thinking it would be as simple but as time has gone on and reading more into this, while the principle is indeed simple the reality of an installation where the matrix system will be some height above the engines does create another issue. This issue is something one can overcome, but it presents more components and time being spent on something that once has been used very rarely again - only if it is very cold and the boat is underway and you only want some heat to the Saloon.

In light of this, I think I might change my mind - but will have a look this weekend when I am back onboard and can see what is what exactly with where pipes may run and so on. I also need to go hunting for the header tank for the closed circuit on the Air-Con because I want to see what state the Glycol  Antifreeze solution is in and if poor drain and re-fill to provide protection over the winter. The issue here is having no idea what I am looking for or where it could be and having a very poor diagram to go on from the HFL website as to how a typical installation may look.

 

 

[Islander]

Just a thought! Would a second heat exchanger in the existing calorifier feed pipe provide enough heat for you. This could be below the existing header tank on the primary side. The secondary passed to the upper level copper pipe through bulkhead fittings if you wished. This would keep you engine bay sealed. The upper matrix would have its own header tank and circulating pump.

Just a thought, I'm no expert 

Colin

[ZimbiIV]

If you are intent on fitting a diesel central heating system soon and where you are moored has shore power. You can run a lot of fan heaters for the cost making adaptations to the engine cooling systems.

A couple of oil filled heaters running in the background will take a long time to heat a boat but will keep the damp and chill out of the air.

Personally I am not for stop gap measures and prefer to wait before making changes that may or not be useful after the major alteration.

paul

[LondonRascal]

Paul you make a good point about stop gap measures, and originally this was intended to be something that could be put in on a semi-permanent basis.

However then, the more I considered this I thought if it is in it may as well stay there so looked into details more and cosmetically pleasing units and fascias to cover them. But you are right down the line I do want to install diesel heating and the most efficient will be the 'wet type' where coolant is heated up not air.  This in turn can heat the water onboard as well as provide heating to the cabins.  

I may have said before, but it may well be possible to utilize the existing air handlers and plumbing they use to connect to the Diesel heaters hot water output and simply have a valve installed to isolate the chillers from the air-con side. Then, come summer one can equally isolate the diesel heating side from the system but both would share a common header tank and plumbing system - this is something HFL who make the 'air-con system on the boat produce, I'd rather see if such can be done locally (as in Norfolk)

Combined system from HFL:

 

This is very similar to the system I have installed:

From the above, I can now see that the pressure gauge that I thought was for the fresh water system is actually for the chiller system 'coolant circuit' of the air-con. This explains why it is set to 14 PSI (which is pretty low for a fresh water system) and I am sure I will confirm on the weekend it is not part of the accumulator tank at all. I find it fascinating making these discoveries.

As to the 'free heat' system, there is also the possibility of using the Starboard engine - which is not connected to the Calorifier, thus it's full coolant heat output could be used without having to take into account of any heat loss already going on from the Calorifier  that the Port engine has.

However, there is also no plumbing on this engine - but I am sure the outlets are there to be tapped into.

 

[Siddy]

http://www.ductstore.co.uk/acatalog/Lindab-Tectherm-Insulated-Flexible-Ducting.html

fire resistant to 30 mins. You could put a inline fire damper. £60

The fire system you have would put it out it's what we use in comms rooms like been on top of everest it removes the oxygen BUT not the heat. Just put a check in place that the pressure is in the green that sets the system off, sticker above the closed sea cocks maybe. 

Heating - when the hot water is to temp does the water just carry on going round the circuit. Could it be as simple as installing a 3 port valve like a house system that uses a water tank that works 50/50 then when the tanks to temp it works 100% matrix side. 

Other option is a inline 2kw water heater which is what we have on our large gen sets to keep them warm for instant starts, They now put these in houses inplace of a boiler where there's no gas. Council put this system in my grans house.

[Guest]

Given that I now know that the matrix system was going to be a stop gap I would have said immediately don't bother as its a lot of work for not much usage , now I know there's nothing hot tank or heating system attached to the STB engine then it make sense to use the heat from that side rather than the port that has got a hot tank in the circuit if indeed yiu are going to now connect anything to the engine cooling circuits , the reason being if you are not careful then its entirely possible to do the opposite of what some suggest will happen and over cool one engine , that in its self is bad news as far as wear and efficiency is concerned .

Wet system diesel boilers are not just the most efficient but by far the easiest to install , however take expert advice on planning a system as too bigger boiler and a small heating circuit is not good for the boiler , my narrow boat at a cabin size of 40' or so worked perfectly on s 5kw webasto and 5 radiators heating 25L of coolant , a 9.5kw boiler on my then girlfriends boat had 3 single radiators and spent more time broken down than running , over 3 yrs I didn't touch the boiler once and even then when I did check it there was no carbon build up , that incidentally is running on and off all winter long using around 150L a month .

[LondonRascal]

Thanks for the real world advice above, the thing is right now I am merrily going to the boat and using the electric hook up and have not the slightest idea how much a unit of electric costs - so may well be in for a shock and could explain why other boaters in the Marina use their diesel heating if that turns out to be a far cheaper option.

I have to be careful mind you because I have just had the berth signed over to me for nothing, and if I go to the office to much and begin causing bother they may think of wanting some money off me - they seemed a bit miffed when I wanted the WiFi code which then turned out not to cover the whole marina, just the lounge and outside deck area.

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

I'd rather see if such can be done locally (as in Norfolk)

The best system I have seen is called KABOLA. Speak to Peachments in Brundall. They have installed it in boats for Haines.

[dnks34]

Robin i would expect a few electric fan heaters set to half would cost less than running diesel heating in most cases but I suppose it all depends!! 

[dnks34]

31 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

Thanks for the real world advice above, the thing is right now I am merrily going to the boat and using the electric hook up and have not the slightest idea how much a unit of electric costs - so may well be in for a shock and could explain why other boaters in the Marina use their diesel heating if that turns out to be a far cheaper option.

I have to be careful mind you because I have just had the berth signed over to me for nothing, and if I go to the office to much and begin causing bother they may think of wanting some money off me - they seemed a bit miffed when I wanted the WiFi code which then turned out not to cover the whole marina, just the lounge and outside deck area.

If i am right in presuming the berth was paid up for the year by the old owner I would be thinking about moving on rather than renewing if something as simple as a wifi code is going to upset them!!